
Book ■ T Ta /^^ 

Copght ^. 



copyRiGiiT DEPOsn: 



NEW POEMS 



NEW POEMS 



By 
RICHARD EDWIN DAY 




THE GRAFTON PRESS 

NEW YORK MCMIX 



<: 



r 



■^k 



Copyright, 1909 
By RICHARD E. DAY 



©CI. A 25305.) 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

The Adventure of Gudrid 3 

The Last King of Granada 12 

Ino 16 

The Voyage of Bacchus 21 

The Conquest of Thebes 27 

The Fall of Dionysus 35 

Vashti . . ' 41 

Ponce de Leon 44 

To the Wood-thrush 47 

The Dancing Pines 50 

The Ephemerae 52 

A Meditation in Spring 54 

Swamp Grass 55 

The Sea-flowers 57 

In the Cavern 60 

The Jewel 63 

Nature and Man 64 

To One Beloved by Children 66 

November Hours 67 

Transmutation 68 

Fond Names 69 

V 



PAGE 

Good Morrow 70 

Thy Garden 72 

Submission 73 

Under the Stars 75 

Obedience 77 

Unforgotten 80 

The Face in the Water 81 

On the Shore 82 

Twin Mysteries 83 

An Offering 84 

In the Shadow of Azrael 85 

Introspection 89 

Immortality 92 

Wisdom and Love 95 

The Blue Lotus 98 

Nirvana 101 

To Memory 104 

In St. Agnes Cemetery 106 

In Memory of Richard Day 109 

On the Manuscript Papers of Sir William John- 
son 113 

John Henry Newman 117 

Incarnation 120 

The Tranquil Mind 122 

The Unused Talent 123 

Service 124 

Life's Unity 125 

▼i 



PAGE 

The Invisible Sea 126 

Whippoorwill 127 

France 128 

Germany 129 

Italy 130 

Dante 131 

Don Quixote 136 

Sea-Wine 137 

The Seabird 138 

The Petrel 139 

Two Castaways 140 

The Quest 141 

The Portuguese Men-of-War 142 

The Empty Nest 143 

Fire of Driftwood 144 

The Cruise of Mars 145 



Vll 



NEW POEMS 



NEW POEMS 



The Adventure of Gudrid^ 

Up the blue fjord the summer, wooing the northland, 
blows, 

Round the bleak coast the sea-tide, bright in the sun- 
shine, flows ; 

The drakars fret at their moorings, eager their sails 
to spread 

Over a waste where never the Norseman's keel hath 
sped. 

But Gudrid, star of the host that dwell in the new 

Norse home, 
Frowning and silent sits when the flagon is crowned 

with foam. 
Seeing the long, bright days that out of the south 

lands came. 
Laden with promise and hope of glory, empty of 

fame. 

* The account of the Icelandic saga given by Edraond Neu- 
komm in his " Rulers of the Sea " presents the theme in its main 
features which is developed in this poem. 

3 



And Aulaf, glory-giver, praiser of sword and shield, 
Hating the easeful calm that slumbers on Brattehild, 
Scorning the rule of Thorstein, Eric's slothful son, 
Whose tame heart feels not through it the blood of 
sea-kings run, 

Sings of the roving vikings, music of ringing blades. 

Battle mirth of heroes, feats of warrior maids, 

Of Bjom, the son of Herwolf, and Leif, whose dragon 

drave 
Into the realm of sunset, far on the westering wave ; 

Sings to the leaping harp-strings Gudrid's mighty 
deeds, — 

When, as the bride of Thorer, she goes where his hel- 
met leads. 

Harrying coast) and city, and under her falchion's 
strokes. 

The blood which the god Tyr loves bubbles like wine 
and smokes. 

Till up from the banquet board, cheering, the feasters 

sprang. 
With din of sudden arming and loud, resounding 

clang ; — 
Till, like the ice-hemmed bark that breaks from the 

floe in spring, 
From its torpor broke the spirit of the sluggard king. 

4 



Then spake the son of Eric and brother of valiant 

Leif: 
" My peaceful dream surrenders to thy bold vision, 

wife. 
With deeds as great and gallant shall every soul be 

thrilled, 
When some new Vinland sends its spoils to Bratte- 

hild." 

And now the blood of oxen, of swine and wide-winged 

fowl 
Is poured on the stony altars set where the breakers 

howl; 
And, peering o'er the victims, some portent to descry, 
Thorstein invokes the powers of changing sea and sky: 

Aegir, whose fierce breath hurries the land-embracing 

tides. 
The crafty Ran, who, under the moonlit billow hides. 
To snare th' unwary helmsman, nodding in sleep as 

he floats. 
And Thor, who round the mast drives his fire-breathing 

goats. 

So in the sweet, bland weather, so when the waves are 

white. 
Tumbling in tumult, so in the dreary arctic night, 

5 



The Norsemen steer; and oft, as the pole-star mounts, 
or reels 

Down from the central heaven, they right their wan- 
dering keels. 

O'er them the weird aurora lifted its faint blue frame. 
With violet shafts and hangings of purple and rosy 

flame. 
And Aulaf sang of Gladsheim, house of the Asa gods. 
And Gimle, Avhere the blessed have their serene abodes. 

They traversed the wastes of auk and plover and 

white-winged gull. 
Where the homed whale battles with the herds of the 

tusked sea-bull; 
Skirted the coast where the slain Thrym lies, o'er- 

thrown by Thor, 
The sunbeam on his idle panoply of war; 

Saw many a floating horror, strayed from the iceberg 

fleet, 
In awful luster blazing, like Odin's glorious seat. 
Where, sitting aloft, afar, untroubled by mortal ways. 
The All-father scans the calm procession of his days. 

But now the pride of Balder, circling the heaven, 

swings 
Into the sign of Aries ; loudly the trumpet rings, 

6 



Set to the mouth of Marchtime ; full on the viking 

fleet 
All the weight of the springtide, keen as a sword, doth 

beat. 

Many a Northman mourns that not by the amber- 
tressed 

Valkyries he is borne to Odin's warrior rest; 

Yet he dreams in Aegir's hall under the moaning deep. 

And the glare of the phosphor lamps falls softly on 
his sleep. 

And they whom the succoring rock snatches from 

Aegir's toils, 
When his vasty caldron's brew murmurs and bubbles 

and boils, 
Tossing the bitter foam-wreaths dear to the Asa gods. 
And high in the firmament his black plume wavers and 

nods, — • 

On a savage shore they crouch, where the far-flung 

galleys pound, 
While the sea pours in and out at many a gaping 

wound ; 
And as the drifting wreckage strewn on the hungering 

main, 
So is the hope that Gudrid cherished in heart and 

brain. 

7 



The lord of the wild west coast Thorstein the Black 
was called. 

He came to the mariners, and heard the voice of the 
skald, 

Singing of Thorwald Ericson, flower of vikinghood, 

Smitten to death by the Skrellings in Vinland's dark- 
some wood. 

Listened the lord of the west coast, listened awhile 

and spake: 
" Dear is the name of Thorwald ; welcome are ye for 

his sake. 
But fitter it were, O friends, by the fire-log's ample 

blaze 
To wake the generous harp and the hero's deeds to 

praise." 

And Thorstein, son of Eric, was glad in a dreary land 
To win some cheer and solace out of the ocean's hand ; 
And under the friendly roof-tree day by day grew 

light 
The hearts of the castaways, forgetting the sea-gods' 

spite. 

The glad hours fled, and the sad hours followed upon 

their track; 
For, all unbidden, came to the house of Thorstein, the 

Black— 

8 



Not borne to its kindly hearth on a stranded ship — 

a guest, 
Like a ghost from the pallid wastes of polar grim- 

ness — Pest. 

Under its withering touch strong men in agony fall, 
And the son of Eric lies, with white face toward the 

wall; 
And on to the barren coast, where the vapor never lifts 
Around the ice-locked cruiser, the soul of the chieftain 

drifts. 

Now with a weight of darkness vision and sense are 

sealed. 
Nevermore will he ride up the fjord to Brattehild. 
And, mixt with the moan of stricken men who strew 

the ground. 
Hearken the voice of Gudrid! hark to the wailing 

sound ! 

Keen is that cry of mourning, piercing the deadly 

mists. 
Till the spirit of Thorstein, passing, pauses, trembles, 

lists. 
Turns in the celestial way, back to the woeful place; 
And again his eyes drink in the light of one sweet 

face. 



" Weep not, Gudrid," he said. " Thine is a happier 
fate 

Than to plow the untoward wave, yoked with a listless 
mate. 

Out of this woe and disaster, thou shalt go, to explore, 

Matched with a bold Norse eagle, fairer and friend- 
lier shore. 

" Under the new, sad sign, that conquers the kings of 

the Earth, 
And humbles the olden gods, in their fastness in the 

North, 
Thy brow, by battle lighted, the glory will excel 
Of all that the skalds have chanted, all that the sagas 

tell." 

Up the blue fjord the summer, wooing the northland, 
blows. 

Round the bleak coast the sea-tide, bright in the sun- 
shine flows ; 

A drakar glides to the haven, bringing to Brattehild 

All that the storm and shipwreck, plague and the stark 
shore yield. 

Then Aulaf, singer of sorrows, sang of the gods dis- 
graced, 

A song the sea-gods chanted, flung to him over the 
waste ; 

10 



For changed was the voice forever that floated on the 

surge, 
And the laughter of the gods rolled landward hke a 

dirge. 

So Gudrid came again to the city by the fjord, 
Borne in a stranger galley, mourning her perished 

lord. 
Stories of kings and vikings gleamed through the 

gloom of her mind ; 
But brighter than all their glory the deed of Thor- 

stein shined. 



11 



The Last King Of Granada 

It is night ; and the moon o'er Granada her glory doth 
show ; 

Mosques and minarets glisten; the rivers run spar- 
kling below; 

And the rays on Sierra Nevada gild brightly the snow. 

But the people are bending in sorrow, in streetway 

and gate; 
For the foe o'er against the proud city, is lord of its 

fate; 
By Jenil and silvery Darro his stem cannon wait. 

Ah ! happy the faithful, fair city, who fell by thy wall ! 
At mom, when thy gates shall swing open, at the loud 

trumpet-call, 
They shall see not the Infidel's pity, nor weep at thy 

fall. 

The sword of the Prophet, which Allah gave into his 
hand, 

12 



Is broken and scorned, like the idols that fain would 

withstand, 
When forth flamed the son of Abdallah o'er Araby's 

sand. 

Thy master, O beauteous Alhambra, his sad vigil 

keeps ; 
In castle and temple and hovel no Mussulman sleeps; 
And ever across Bivarambla the loud wailing sweeps. 

They mourn for the kingdom whose glory their fathers 

have told; 
For the conquest of Arab and Berber, the silver and 

gold; 
For the heroes and warriors of story from Tarik, the 

bold. 

No more will the feast of the zambra in the gardens 

resound, 
While the lutes and the mirth of the tabrets by the 

fountains abound, 
And the dancers within the Alhambra spurn lightly 

the ground. 

No longer the mountaineers' rally a dread vengeance 

wreaks, 
Rolling death on the foe of the Moslem from Malaga's 

peaks. 
Where the vulture in wild gorge and valley his carrion 

seeks. 

13 



The monarch, high in the Red Palace, looks out o'er 
the plain. 

Where stream on the air, in their triumph, the stand- 
ards of Spain ; 

He writhes under destiny's malice, and bitter his pain. 

" Ah ! never great Allah recalleth the word that He 

saith. 
And never to man maketh answer for life or for death: 
As much doth the storm-wind, when falleth the leaf by 

its breath. 

" Once more unto deserts Saharan is Ishmael chased. 
As when from the tent of his father he wandered, and 

faced 
The sands that are lifted on Paran and whirled o'er 

the waste. 

" The sinister star in the hollow of midnight, shines 

forth, 
That scattered its bale and its sorrow at the hour of 

my birth; 
It beckons away, and I follow, an outcast of Earth; — 

" Not heeding, and recking not, whither, but bearing 

the shame 
Of the last Moorish king of Granada, and girt with 

the flame 
Of a curse that forever will wither Zogoiby's name. 

14 



" Farewell, O beloved Granada, discrowned and for- 
lorn! 
In vain thou wilt hearken at even, and listen at morn, 
To greet on Sierra Nevada the Arabian horn; 

" Watching through the long cycle inglorious, till, 

perchance, late or soon, 
Over Mulahacen newly risen, appears Islam's moon, 
And her sons return, marching, victorious, to some 

wild desert tune." 



15 



Ino 



When Ino, white-browed and golden of locks, 
With her boys, dared the mirth of the sea, 

'Neath a cliff, most worn and ancient of rocks. 
Her spouse, Athamas, in his glee, 

Sat where the high crag jutted out, 

And mixed with their tumult his shout. 

When the Nereids flocked from the night of their caves. 
Riding dolphins with sea-weed curbed. 

When they showed their fair forms in the rush of the 
waves. 
Nor yet the bright frolic disturbed, 

Then he praised all the gods in his joy. 

Giving thanks for each venturesome boy. 

And, when from the waste the green Tritons, gay- 
crowned. 
Rose and winded each horn full loud, 
Till the rock-nested sea-fowl flew wide at the sound. 
An offering to Neptune he vowed, — 
16 



Of swine and black bullocks and sheep, 
With wine running dark as the deep. 

And there, when the breaker is boist'rous and dread, 

Is the infant Bacchus at play, 
A light that is not of the sun on his head. 

And he rosily shines through the spray; 
While the nymphs and Tritons wild 
Proclaim the immortal child. 

But Juno, the white-armed, brooded of scath 

To Bacchus, the son of Jove; 
From mora until even she nourished her wrath 

At the child of a wanton love ; 
And oft, as she sat, lily-crowned, 
While the cup of the gods went round. 

The eyes of the goddess in anger forsook 

The Olympian asphodel turf. 
And she cast o'er the azure expanses a look — 

To the emerald Euboean surf. 
To the swimmers that dived through the spume, 
And knew not the hovering doom. 

Did slumber ensnare the all-quickening eye 

Of Zeus, that he little wist, 
When Hera along the cloud-pasturing sky, 

Took her way in a mantle of mist? 
How slight, if that glance awoke. 
Were the gray, gray mist of her cloak! 

17 



But a wonderful terror the infant divine 

Has seized 'mid the Nereid flocks ; 
He is fled, he is hid, where the shimmering wine 

Bursts the grapes that empurple the rocks ; 
And Athamas saw, at his side. 
The down-floating cloud divide. 

He trembled and gazed as the billowy cloak 

Let the radiant goddess appear; 
And trembled as from the thin drapery spoke 

A voice, that was silvery-clear — 
But lost, ere it sank to the waves, 
In the wind round the swallows' caves. 

" Behold in the midst of the Tritons thy queen ; 

And see! from the breaker's crest 
Young Love, golden-pinioned, in laughter doth lean, 

While he wings a light shaft to her breast. 
But thou hast a mortal's sight, 
Nor seest the gentle sprite. 

" Lo ! the king of the Tritons has brought her a wreath. 

Nor amber nor coral it lacks, 
And thy boys, ere they dive in the billow beneath, 

How they climb on the dolphins' backs ! 
No more will they reverence thee, 
For they sport with the gods of the sea." 

18 



She said, and was gone. Northward driven, the cloud 
Toward the peak of Olympus strove. 

As when a gray eagle the heaven has plowed, 
Wheeling off to the mount of Jove, 

The swimmers a portent saw, 

And paused in foreboding awe. 

As frightened wild birds that are skimming the foam 
Nest-ward fly when the eagle has passed, 

The children of Ino in terror turn home. 
Up the rocky steep clambering fast. 

Not knowing of Athamas' ire, 

Not heeding his glance of fire. 

To his sire young Learchus is springing, a cry 

Of alarm on his lisping tongue; 
(Does the goddess behold from her seat in the sky.f^) 

On the weltering rock he is flung, — 
Dead in a jagged rift 
Where the sea boils up the clift. 

But the boy, Melicertes, the mother drew 
To her breast in an agonized strain, 

(Did the goddess behold from her throne in the blue?) 
And she leaped down the sheltering main. 

While Neptune, with jarring and thunder. 

Cleft the dark nether tides flowing under. 

19 



A translucence bright lit the galleried brine, 

And told of the god not far; 
The sea-flower shone with a pallor divine, 

As it shook with the rush of his car; 
And, far from the breath of the morn, 
In their breasts life immortal was born. 

They are gods; and forever their joy is to swim 
In the Earth-shaker's frolicking train, 

Or the white phosphor lamps at his portals to trim, 
When the steeds have been loosed from his wain. 

And he wassails in musical caves. 

And laughs as the rebel sea raves. 

But their thought speeds away when the surges are 
loud. 

To the toil of the shuddering keel, — 
When the vast by his chariot's motion is plowed, 

And the fisher boats wander and reel; 
Then they pilot the craft through the gale, 
And strengthen the swimmers that fail. 

Once, when whistled the tempest and whitened the wave, 

Fair Ino, ascending the sea, 
The hero, much-suffering Ulysses, did save, 

Though hated by Neptune was he; 
And the surge sings of her evermore. 
Sweeping round the Phaeacian shore. 

20 



The Voyage of Bacchus 

The weeping Bacchus gazed and feared, 
When down the deep, green hollow 

His foster mother disappeared, 

And much he yearned to follow; 

But soon the waves together sHd, 

And all the strange abyss was hid. 

Beneath the cliff his playmate lay, 

Where the wild surf was singing; 

His hair was mingled with the spray 
Upspringing and upspringing; 

His cheek was paler than the foam 

Which flew from off the billow's comb. 

" Come back! Come back! " the child-god cried; 

" Oh ! hide not, cruel mother. 
Come Melicertes ! Here I bide ; 

And slumber chains our brother. 
The jagged stone is now his bed. 
And with his blood the wave is red. 
21 



" Learchus, wake ! His eyes I fear ; 

They glare but have no brightness. 
His face did ne'er so pale appear. 

I wonder whence its whiteness. 
See how the hungry surges swim 
Up to the cliff and gnash at him." 

Out where the baffled breaker curves, 

Around a headland sweeping, 
A painted galley rolls and swerves, 

Along the shore-line creeping; 
The anchor dropped from wind-browned hands 
Before the rock where Bacchus stands. 

About the cliff the wild grapes hung 

In many a sea-blue cluster. 
To one low tree the ivy clung. 

And all around a luster, 
That might some sacred radiance be 
Or just the sun upon the sea. 

" Hail, dainty boy ! " the seamen cried. 

" Pray go with us a-s ailing. 
To happy islands we will glide. 

So cease your tears and wailing. 
Our ship is like a swan of oak. 
That oars herself with noiseless stroke." 
22 



" This way she went, my mother fair, — 
Adown the deep, green hollow. 

Good sailors, shall we journey there? 
For much I yearn to follow. 

Just now the waves together slid. 

And all the strange abyss was hid." 

" Yes, pretty babe, there journey we, 
For, near the blessed islands, 

A deep, green lane divides the sea 

To Neptune's groves and by-lands. 

No breezes blow, nor breaker curls, 

When we go down for shells and pearls." 

" Nay, weave no more your wicked charm.' 

The pilot spake in anger. 
" Ye must not lure him to his harm. 

Nor mock the tiny stranger." 
But him with threats they overbore; 
And rowed their galley to the shore. 

Again they climbed the crested swell. 
Toward Egypt's coast a-riding. 

Young Bacchus for a slave to sell, 
The impious price dividing. 

Sometimes the main was azure glass ; 

Then Neptune mowed his fields like grass. 
23 



And, when the captive cried, " How near 
Are now the blessed islands? 

When shall I clasp my mother dear, 

'Mid Neptune's groves and by-lands ? " 

The seamen laughed with boisterous roar. 

And rowed their boat toward Egypt's shore. 

But, when the wind was in the sail, 
And gradual evening darkled, 

And in the rudder's moonlit trail 
The rushing water sparkled. 

While on their banks the rowers slept, 

The child god to the pilot crept. 

Upon the sailor's breast he lay ; 

The lulling tides did tinkle. 
On many an isle, in many a bay. 

Where rising stars did twinkle; 
And often from some shaggy fell 
Was heard the pard's and tiger's yell. 

One night a blush came on the deep, 

Like thick wine in a flagon. 
Richer than when the horses leap 

With Helius' flaming wagon 
Out of the brine, and at their charge 
The sea runs fire, from marge to marge. 
S4 



" Behold, sweet boy," the pilot said ; 

" And cease thy tears and wailing. 
The gods they keep thy sunny head, 

And go with thee a-s ailing. 
Thy captors shall not cheat thee long, 
Nor mock thy plaint with jest and song." 

Then to his mates, at dawn, he cried: 
" The gods give fearful warning. 

Last night the sea like blood was dyed. 
As with the fires of morning." 

But him with jests they overbore; 

And rowed their boat toward Egypt's shore. 

But now those mocking faces mark. 
With ghastly terror written. 

The oars hang poised; the full-sailed bark 
Tugs in the wind, fast-smitten ; 

And round the god and faithful guard 

Gambol the tiger and the pard. 

About the ship the wild grapes hung 

In many a sea-blue cluster. 
To its low mast the ivy clung. 

And on the sea a luster, 
A dancing light of rosy hue. 
That melted off into the blue. 
25 



Beneath the wave the traitors slip, 

Drawn by some weird dominion ; 

Whereat the disenchanted ship 
Looses its straining pinion ; 

And, as the splendors o'er them break. 

They turn to dolphins in her wake. 

Then the god, Bacchus, saw anear. 
Robed in immortal graces, 

Ino and Melicertes dear. 

The old joy on their faces. 

Driving the dolphin crew like sheep 

In the sunny hollows of the deep. 



26 



The Conquest of Thebes 

An army, but not of warriors, with the thyrsus, not 

the spear; 
Wreathed with the oak and ivy, wearing the skins of 

deer ; 
Laden with sweet yew branches, to the city of Thebes 

draws near. 

Laughing-eyed women of Lydia, playing the seven- 
stringed lute, 

Ruddy-hpped maidens of Phrygia, breathing soft airs 
on the flute. 

Nor the drums of the Coryb antes, nor the cymbals of 
Tmolus, are mute. 

O'er the bright locks of their chieftain no helmet of 

bronze is drawn ; 
Nor battle has scarred his white body, half-clothed with 

the hide of the fawn ; 
And the foot of the stag is not lighter, coming forth 

on the mountain at dawn. 
2T 



The waters of ancient Ismenus exult m his presence 

and dance, 
The flowers start upward and quiver, as they feel his 

proud footstep advance; 
And the grapes, that yet linger unripened, behold how 

they blush at his glance. 

" Euoi ! Euoi ! Hail Bacchus ! " the dames of Cad- 

mea sing; 
" Euoi ! Euoi ! Hail Bacchus ! " The gates of Cad- 

mea swing. 
" Euoi ! Euoi ! Hail Bacchus, for Bacchus is lord and 

king." 

" Euoi ! Euoi ! Hail Bacchus ! " Shall the warriors 

of Thebes be dumb? 
" Euoi ! Euoi ! Hail Bacchus ! " They dance to the 

pipe and drum. 
" Euoi ! Euoi ! Hail Bacchus ! The lord of delight 

has come." 

" Euoi ! Euoi ! Hail Bacchus ! " the dames of Cadmea 

sing. 
"Euoi! Euoi! Hail Bacchus!" The pines of Ci- 

thaeron ring. 
" Euoi ! Euoi ! Hail Bacchus, for Bacchus is lord 

and king." 

S8 



*' But where is the king of the Thebans ? " sweetly the 

wine god said. 
" Pentheus, the king of the Thebans, comes not at the 

dancers' head. 
By him should the song be chanted, and the choral 

dance be led. 

" Ride, O merry Silenus, with the nymphs and satyrs 

all. 
To the palace of great Pentheus, to the midst of the 

royal hall, 
And bid him to the revels, where the feet of the dancers 

fall." 

So rides the merry Silenus, with the nymphs and 
satyrs all. 

To the palace of great Pentheus, to the midst of the 
royal hall, 

And bids him to the revels, where the feet of the dan- 
cers fall. 

The king from his throne hath risen. " Great Pallas- 
Athene I know, 

I revere the twin births of Latona, the gods of the 
silvery bow. 

And oft with the dogs of Diana to the chase on the 
mountains I go. 

29 



" But the wandering Dionysus, who cometh across the 

sea, 
With a troop of ribald dancers and pipes blowing 

wantonly, — 
How shall I learn his worship, or know him a god to 

be?" 



" Come," spake the merry Silenus, " O king whom the 

Thebans fear; 
Wreathe thee with oak and ivy, wearing the skin of 

deer; 
Come with the sweet yew branches where the peaks their 

fir tops rear. 

" They have gone, the Lydian dancers, where the 

solemn fountains gush; 
And often the wild euoi will ravish the sacred hush; 
And sweetly the Phrygian fluters will startle the lonely 

thrush. 



" They have gone, the Cadmean women, to turn in the 

Bacchic dance; 
Where the sun-rift is bright on Cithaeron, their white 

feet will twinkle and glance 
Like the wavelets that over the bosom of ancient Is- 

menus advance." 

30 



The king on his throne is seated, and the wanton crew 

is fled, 
Like the flock of twittering swallows that down 

through the palace sped. 
And long and deep he ponders what the merry silen 

said. 

" Dark are the eyes of the Lydians, that burn with 

the fire they fling; 
Red are the lips of the Phrygians, and sweet is their 

honied sting; 
And white are the arms the Cadmeans in the wildering 

orgies swing. 

" There Aphrodite wanders, crowned with the flame 

of the rose; 
Around the eddying Bacchants the Paphian swallow 

goes; 
And a celestial madness in the heart of the Bacchant 

glows. 

" But the light on the brow of Pallas, the strength in 

her steadfast look, 
The cheer in her words, outringing like bronze by the 

spearpoint strook, 
Win the soul by a nobler wooing, and never its trust 

forsook. 

31 



" O king, shall thy city be stricken by the woes which 
the strangers bring? 

Or wilt thou stand forth where this vagrant is draw- 
ing his maddening ring, 

And know if these Asian wonders be more than the 
might of a king? 

" If ever, ye gods most ancient, the fanes of the Theban 

grove 
Seemed goodly and fair to your vision, being bright 

with the gifts ye love, 
And the savor of pleasant altars rose up to your seats 

above. 



" Save Thebes from her shame and frenzy. Or, if ye 

have lost your joy 
In her many-towered beauty, let Ares his spear employ, 
And here by the fountains of Dirce her towers and 

gates destroy. 



*' In the dance and the orgies of Ares and the blood 

that he loves to drain, 
In the crash of the empty chariots that cumber the 

smoking plain. 
Let Cadmea fall, nor a vestige to tell of her pride 

remain. 



" By thy plague-winged arrows, Apollo, let her 
strength waste away from the earth. 

Or lie prone in her ruins, Poseidon, entombed by thy 
terrible mirth. 

So she guard the high soul the gods gave her, and 
leave the pure fame of her worth ! " 

Strange and wild are the glades of Cithaeron, where 

the Bacchant winds and raves, 
And the pine-tree, back and forward, in a stately 

measure waves. 
And they weave a chant that wanders for aye in the 

dells and caves. 

But the revel is stilled on Cithaeron, and the roar of 

its ribaldry. 
" Behold ! " cries the merry Silenus. " One cometh 

mockingly. 
Not bearing the branch or thyrsus, nor crowned as the 

Bacchants be." 

" Draw hither, O mighty Pentheus," sweetly the wine- 
god said. 

But the eyes of the Cadmean women shone with a 
luster dread. 

While the fury of the wine-god through all their senses 
sped. 

33 



Alas for the king of the Thebans and the city of the 

plain ! 
At the hands of the Cadmean women, he lies on the 

mountain, slain — 
At the hands of his dear kinswomen. And hark to 

their fierce refrain: 

" Euoi ! Euoi ! Hail Bacchus ! " the dames of Cad- 

mea sing. 
"Euoi! Euoi! Hail Bacchus!" The pines of Ci- 

thaeron ring. 
" Euoi ! Euoi ! Hail Bacchus, for Bacchus is lord 

and king." 



34 



The Fall of Dionysus 

Again on the mountain are gathered the daughters of 

mirth ; 
And rapture descendeth, too keen for the dwellers of 

earth ; 
And Bacchus is leading the chorus that sings of his 

birth. 



The thyrsus is lifted before liim ; the cymbals advance ; 
The Maenads, aglow at his presence, melt into the 

dance ; 
And the eyes of the fluters are gazing like those in a 

trance. 



Wild and sweet are the notes which the flutes in their 

ecstasy breathe, 
Bright and gay are the garlands the tiger's whelp 

ramps beneath. 
Or under whose leaves the sinuous serpents wreathe. 

35 



As they weave, the women of Hellas, the choral 

maze, — 
As they weave and unweave the web where the light 

foot strays. 
They chant to the lute's soft measure the young god's 

praise. 

" See ! the merry conqueror comes ! From Ausonian 

meads 
To the rivers of Ind, that murmur and flash 'mid their 

reeds, 
He hath wandered; and nations are drunk with the 

fame of his deeds. 



" Praise Bacchus, the holy ! the youngest and might- 
iest god! 

Where the impious stood, their heads are laid low as 
the sod; 

The lion and leopard crouch under liis ivy-wreathed 
rod. 



" Vain the wrath of the queen of the sky, that hung 

over the head 
Of the infant divine — as vain as an arrow that's sped ; 
From his foes overthrown he hath gotten a name that 

is dread. 

36 



" As stars that wheel downward, and fade when the 

morning is nigh — 
Ere the torch of the light-giver flames in the roof of 

the sky, 
The gods of the withering darkness behold him and 

%• 

" Henceforth from Olympus the eyes of the world are 

withdrawn ; 
They turn to Cithaeron, where dances the rose-footed 

dawn, 
And the revelers reel, arrayed in the pride of the fawn." 

Then sudden the melody died of the lyre many-stringed ; 
And the player they knew by the wand which an olive 

branch ringed. 
And the petasus bearing wings and the sandals winged. 

" mountain of Bacchus and dark, immemorial grove," 
Cried the fair son of Maia and swift message-bringer 

of Jove, 
" No more through your haunts the Bacchants in frenzy 

will rove; — 

** For the glory will fail that crowns the Cambunian 

range ; 
Disenchantment will fall upon Delphi; on Helicon, 

change ; 
And Asian Tmolus and Ida be names that are strange. 

37 



" A mountain there is where the blaze of the mom 

kindles first; 
There the grim tree of death spreads its gaunt arms, 

abhorred and accurst, 
And the fruit which it bears nor sunbeam nor rain-drop 

hath nursed. 

" 'Tis the cross — name of terror! yet on that hard 

bosom to die 
Will be sweeter to men than in flowers Idalian to lie. 
When the turtle doth murmur, and blest Cytheraea 

doth sigh. 

" The kingdom immortal is passing to one who hath 

lain 
On that bed of reproach ; life's scepter is given to pain ; 
And Zeus, god of pleasure, is yielding to him that was 

slain. 

" O Chronos, gray father of eld, by thy son over- 
thrown, 

O Titans primeval, whose brute fronts are humbled and 
prone. 

The Thunderer falls, and the day of his empire hath 
flown." 

Listened naiads and oreiads as the wise god spoke; 
And many a dryad looked out from a sheltering oak; 
No sound from those savage abodes did the ear pro- 
voke. 

38 



Then Bacchus ; and flung from his forehead the fair 

ivy crown. 
" O man, thou dost make and unmake, dost enthrone 

and pull down; 
The gods come and go, as thy spirit doth own and 

disown. 

" Thou hast brought us the myrtle and olive, the laurel 

and pine ; 
Thou hast offered the flower-crowned bullock, the 

sweet-breathed kine ; 
And poured the libation of honey and bright flashing 

wine. 

" In joy thou wast reared, in joy thou hast wrought 

and hast striven ; 
In joy thou hast served, and joy unto thee hath been 

given ; 
In joy thou hast sinned, in joy hast been healed and 

been shriven. 

" Thyself now alone shalt the fillet of sacrifice wear. 
No victim the pangs of thy soul's expiation will share. 
Nor thy vigil of pain when the night vapor drenches 
thy hair. 

" By smitings and stripes till the dolorous day-course 

is run. 
By watchings and prayers till the night is cast out 

by the sun, 

39 



By penitent tears shall the smile of thy Heaven be 
won. 

" Ye daughters of gladness, strip from you the ivy 

and vine, 
Veil the delicate flesh which in sackcloth and hair-cloth 

will pine. 
And scatter the blossoms that with your dark tresses 

entwine. 

" The rapture and rage of Cithaeron no longer are 

meet 
For the souls which in vision and wasting shall strive 

to repeat 
The tokens of Calvary's passion on hands and on feet. 

" The lion and tiger are loosed from their flowery 

yoke. 
Ye shall front them again, where the sands with the 

red slaughter smoke ; 
And your thoughts will turn hither when bend your 

fair heads to the stroke." 

Dionysus and Hermes are gone, and the daughters of 

mirth; 
And pine-clad Cithaeron, with silence about its grim 

girth, 
Stands gloomily waiting the light newly risen on 

earth. 

40 



Vashti 

Repeat your message, chamberlains. Forget 

What sudden anger burned into my face. 

My lord is mirthful, as his beaker laughs 

The oft-poured, oft-drained bubbles from its brim; 

Or, setting off his riches, he would boast 

The chasteness of his queen, that will not enter. 

Unveiled, before ten thousand eyes, whose glare 

Is kindled by a wanton week of wine. 

How seemed he as he spake? Did not a smile 

Flash into the dark edges of his beard? 

If I refuse, think ye not he will say : 

" Nobles and satraps, does our Persia hold 

Another wife as modest-faced as she — 

Wearing her purity, though I bid doff? " 

No loving boast, no jest, lurked in his speech? 

Then woe is me that I was ever queen. 

Answer my lord thus : " ' Vashti thinks you set 

Less than a kingly price on her poor blushes.' " 

With marveling looks they go ; they shudder, too. 

That a weak woman bids a king be wroth. 

41 



Like horror on the bacchanalian throng 

Mj mutiny will fasten, and a palsy 

Lock up each bibbing and each babbling lip. 

What suffering will meted be to her 

Who matches royal whim with will as royal, 

And him abases who would her abase? 

Perhaps his slaves will come to scourge thee forth, 

O most presumptuous Vashti; or, himself, 

Ahasuerus will, with bloody hand 

From thy dead features tear the jealous veil. 

There's nothing may confront the pride of monarchs. 

That is as slender as a woman's throat. 

Yet only yester, as we twain stood here. 

He vowed my face was fairer in his sight 

Than all the flowers in the gardens of Babylon ; 

And, when I sang my native village songs, 

He praised me to this nightingale, that rains 

Fountains of melod}^ from her slight beak. 

He seemed a lover only ; not my king. 

Banished. No more Ahasuerus' queen. 
From my dishonored head will the tiara 
Be plucked, and set upon another's brow. 
She will be queen ; and I shall do her honor, 
What time I sit not, clad in wretchedness. 
With the discarded women who remember 
The hour they bloomed upon their sovereign's breast. 
And in that blighted group there will be none 

42 



As miserable as Vashti, or as proud. 
As each new favorite her light shall bring 
Into the harem, shall the menials whisper, 
" Yonder is Vashti ; she that was discrowned." 
Yes, throbbing heart, thy fate is hard to bear. 
It shall be heavier than thou hast conceived; 
And life's most loathed bitterness must be 
To love the oppressor, and forever love. 
Ah! that his favor ever fell on me! 
The day when I, in Shushan, was bedecked 
With regal raiment and the king's high choice. 
It had been better, if, in pale repose 
'Neath roses white as death, I had been borne 
By sad-faced kinsmen to the Tower of Silence — 
E'en to the banquet of the screaming birds. 
For faithlessness queens have been put away; 
Vashti's misdeed is only that her beauty 
Too jealously she guarded for her king. 
And now this veil will never by his hand 
Be lifted. Will some constant, heavenly light 
Repel its dreadful darkness from my soul.f^ 
Great spirit, Ormuzd, feed the blessed flame 
That keeps the midnight from a soul in shadow. 
I must depart. A happier woman here 
Will pluck the rose and hear the water tinkle. 
My bulbul, tilting on his golden perch, 
Mingling his gurgle with the fountain's laugh, 
Mellows the bubbling strain to a farewell. 

43 



Ponce De Leon 

'TwAS Easter morning. By the yellow shoals 
The sunbeams glittered on a languid surf; 
The brilliant blossoms of the Flowery Land 
Waved in a light breeze blowing from the main, 
Where crept a little bark that idly flew 
The emblem of Castile and Aragon. 
" Here blooms, I trust, the country of our dreams," 
Spake the stout soldier to his hardy men. 
" For this we ride into the teeth of storms. 
Or tempt the tide that rolls around the reef. 
No Eldorado makes the night watch brighter 
As we are sailing toward the northern stars. 
Or haunts us when we lie becalmed by day. 
Straining our sight across the burnished sea. 
Let others hunt the red ore where it hides. 
Or clutch the ruby's and the topaz's flame — 
Suns blazing in the temples of strange gods, — 
Or emeralds greener than the seas they cross. 
Somewhere on yonder shore a fountain lurks, 
Pouring its crystal wealth in sweeter sound 
Than piled gold pieces in a miser's hands. 
Gold wins all things that mortals prize save youth, 

44 



It cannot counterfeit the fiery ore 

Which paints the vital tide in youthful veins: 

Yon laughing spring holds that which buyeth all. 

" Ah, grizzled Pedro, in that magic pool 
Thy locks will match the wing of rooks once more, 
And all thy wrinkles will be washed away. 
Old Juan, thy crooked form shall be as straight 
As the pine upon thine Andalusian mountains. 
Perhaps — ^Who knows? — we'll revel in the stream, 
Then prone upon the fragrant meadows slumber; 
And time, that sleeps not, with soft step will leave us. 
Bearing the grievous burden of the years. 
Those waters famed in olden time, the rills 
Of Helicon and sacred Castaly, 
Where blest Apollo bathed his shining hair. 
Could charm a poet's stammering tongue to sing. 
That tiny current, 'twixt its banks of flowers, 
Brings back the poet in the human heart, — 
Whence he retires with many sighs when Youth 
Whispers : ' The mom is spent. We must be gone.' 
Sometimes in sleep the jocund twain return. 
Again we stand beneath the balcony, 
With heart quick beating. Star-lit eyes look down. 
The lute-strings tremble into stillness. Only 
The zephyr breathes, and love's delicious sigh. 
Oh, fount that murmurest somewhere in the shade, 
Dreams oft restore the dead: thou canst not that." 

45 



While all the mariners, impatient, scanned 
The shimmering beach in search of cove or bay, 
The grave commander stood in reverj. 
Slowly the by-gone days before him swam. 
Like caravels returning from strange climes. 
That found no port, and bring their cargoes home. 
In field and camp and on the unconquered deep. 
In fierce campaign and siege and perilous cruise, 
Toil, hardship, all the weary weight of war 
And of seafaring — shock from doughty Moor 
In single fight beneath Granada's towers, 
And surges battering the adventurous bark — 
Had bent the spirit and the rugged frame. 
Clashing with fate, oft was he ridden down. 
Oft was he dashed against the reefs of fortune. 
Little of all the New World gave to Courage 
And Avarice, that with a mailed hand 
Rudely entreated, fell to this rough knight: 
A brief dominion, in whose story gleams 
A crimson strand of cruelty and crime, 
Woven with disappointment and with shame. 
Then rose on Hope's fond eye a bright mirage: 
The wasted fount of opportunity, 
Welling up from the sands where it was quenched. 
Nor fades the vision soon. By flowery strand, 
Or where the coral reef beats back the surf, 
Through many a year around the coast-line wanders, 
Forlornly wanders. Ponce de Leon. 

46 



To the Wood-Thrush 

Another year has past, 

Minstrel divine; 
And on the ground myself I cast, 

Beneath that bough of thine, 
And where thy realm of song thou hast, 

A weary heart resign. 

Sing in that peerless way 

Thy quiet theme. 
Caught where the pine-tops all the day 

Gaze at the blue and dream. 
And where with mild, monotonous lay 

Retreats the timid stream. 

The pine's and brooklet's strain 

Has gained a note, 
Amid the shadows of thy brain 

And in thy mellow throat — 
A lilt whose burden is from pain 

And joy alike remote. 
47 



Let thy deep calm distill — 

Voice of the woods — 
And this too care-full spirit fill. 

In thy clear-hearted moods, 
Something less sad than Earth doth thrill, 

Less glad than Heaven broods. 

With such pellucid song 

Didst thou begin .f^ 
Man wrestles much and travails long. 

His life a maddening din. 
Ere he gives forth, unvexed and strong, 

The note he fain would win. 

So near, sweet bird, thou art, 

With breast and ear. 
To Nature's lips and tranquil heart. 

Her thought is always clear — 
What we, who stray from her apart, 

Are loth and late to hear. 

That sovereign content, 

In other days, 
I heard not with thy music blent. 

Walking these shadowy ways ; 
Nor could I know such wisdom meant 

For me, nor could I praise. 
48 



still from its placid spring 

That note of might! 
Thou heedest not what voice may sing 

Victorious delight. 
Raptures must pass , the abiding thing 

Is clear and peaceful sight. 



49 



The Dancing Pines 

Far from the seas resounding, 
Within the meadow lands — 

Far from the billows bounding, 
A grove of pine-trees stands. 

Often in windy weather. 

When a sigh from the sea is sped, 
Dance all the pines together, 

Nodding each verdant head. 

Surely the pines are dreaming 
Of life with a sea-craft brave; 

In a delicious seeming 

They rock on the rolling wave. 

In the green sails they carry, 
Fanning the cone-strewn ground, 

Glad is the wind to tarry. 
Breathing an ocean sound. 
50 



Over one pine-top lurching, 

As mast-tops swiftly sag, 
Wings of a raven perching 

Flap like a pirate flag. 

Masts from the pine grove taken 

Toss in the ocean blasts ; 
So, when the strong winds waken. 

Fain would the pines be masts. 

Happy your inland dances, 

O leafy pines, to know 
Only in wind-rocked fancies 

How the great sea tempests blow ! 



51 



The Ephemerae 

When summ'er winds at nightfall brush 

The woodland waters cool, 
And bear the scent they gently crush 

From flowers beside the pool; 

When moon and stars are fain to lave 
Their foreheads in the lake, 

And on the shore the dying wave 
Swanlike its song doth make, — 

Wee things of night, whose vital gift 

Is rendered with the mom. 
Let every breeze their light wings lift. 

And let the moon adorn. 

Such charm the sky and waters throw 

Around each insect spark, 
It spends the hours and cannot know 

The world is sometimes dark. 



But — sad reflection ! nights there be 
When black mists drape the air, 

And lives are passed that never see 
The world when it is fair. 



53 



A Meditation in Spring 

The beeches rustle musingly their sear, 
White leaves — old missives from the vanished year, 
And, turning the poor keepsakes o'er and o'er, 
Which once could charm, but now can please no more, 
Murmur, " Good bye, old love ! The young year trips 
Along the vale with warm sighs on his lips." 

Not so the maples. When the autumn's chill 
Was on the hill-side, and the glen was still, 
I saw the blaze that lighted all the grove. 
In which they flung the tokens of their love ; 
And marked the ashy relics as they sped 
Up the wide chimney of the gorge o'erhead. 



54> 



Swamp Grass 

Beneath the waters of the lake, 
Grasses and flowers and mosses lie, 

The cold and slanting beams that make 

A shimmer in the fishes' wake, 
Their only portion of the sky. 

No breezes bid their pennons wave; 

No honey-bee invades their bloom. 
Where, in the dusky depths, they lave. 
The dragon nymph lurks in its cave, 

To strike its prey with sudden doom. 

Well does the fox-fire's eerie ray 
Hint of the secrets of the swamp. 

In pools and shallows hid away ; 

There the pale visage of decay 

Floats ghostlike o'er the buried pomp. 

And still from out the drear, dead mold, 
Spring other children of the pond — 
55 



The new life rising on the old, 
Where sleep, in multitude untold, 

The perished blade and withered frond. 

Out of the watery desert grows 

The spacious ruin of their bloom, — 
Till from the lifted moorland flows 
The last complaining wave, and blows 
The wind o'er leagues of sunlit broom. 

And here the feet of men will tread ; 

Here will their habitations rise; 
And, where the heath flower Hfts its head, 
Battle will dye its blossom red. 

And stricken warriors close their eyes. 

Yet, when the wind of evening drives 
Along the moorland's sky-girt length. 

What smothered utterance upward strives? 

The sigh of all the flowers whose lives 
Were built into the heather's strength. 



56 



The Sea-flowers 

The living splendors of the main, 
The pink and purple companies, 

That spangle the untraveled plain 
Beneath the azure seas. 

Grow ever to an alien bloom. 

And sow the deep with buds and leaves- 
Blossoms that light the cold, vast gloom 

O'er which the billow heaves. 

Fashions of beauty round them float. 
Or slumber in some coral dell, — 

The blue sea nettle, like a boat. 
The curious, red-lipped shell. 

Parrot and rainbow fishes splash, 
And jellyfish clear as the brine; 

While wide-winged angel fishes flash 
Their hues almost divine. 
57 



But vacant is each silent court, 
And desolate each flowery way ; 

For in these paths no children sport, 
Nor whispering lovers stray. 

No breeze of morning bends the stalks. 
No evening zephyr lifts the boughs ; 

That tremble only when these walks, 
Slowly, the dead ship plows. 

Or when the shark, on stealthy cruise, 
Seeking his prey with hideous grin, 

Doth fan the creatures of the ooze 
With his o'ershadowing fin. 

And never rude and heedless hand 

Shall tear the clusters of their crown, 

Nor impious storms that scourge the strand 
Shall beat their blossoms down. 

Yellow and purple, pink and rose. 
Orange and snowy fair, they range; 

Nor blight of autumn any knows. 
Nor winter's deadly change. 

Yet violets on a bank of green. 

Tossing blue bonnets in the sun, — 

A part of some bright human scene, 
Then gathered one by one, 
58 



Have their own glory, better far 

Than that which dwells the seas belo\^', 

Though inaccessible as a star 
And deathless as its glow. 



59 



In the Cavern 

How distant seems the world o'erhead ! 
Not more I hear its echoing sound 
Than one who, laid within the ground, 

Listens though dead. 

Time's scythe is dropped, where naught to reap 
Is found within its deadly swing. 
Save bats that brush with filmy wing 

His heavy sleep; 

And, like an ancient water-clock. 
The huge stalactite's stony lip 
Tells out the centuries, drip by drip, 

Upon the rock. 

Man's voice, through wandering silence hurled, 
Back from the arch of night rebounds. 
Till in some lampless vault, it sounds 

Old as the world. 

60 



From the abysses of the dark 

No planet lifts a taper pale; 

Nor sun, his torch, wherewith to scale 
The aerial arc. 

Hark where the strong-voiced rivers run. 
Singing to Midnight's heedless ear! 
Children of peak and plain, why here 

Mourn ye the sun? 

Hark where they leap the horrid wall, 
And rush into some deeper tomb. 
As if they heard amid their gloom 

The ocean call! 

Palace and temple, old and grand. 
New risen when a million years 
Were counted in that pendant's tears. 

Are heaped with sand. 

Pillar and frieze and arch have gone, 
Builded for honor and delight ; 
But, reared away from man's proud sight, 

These walls last on. 

Little of man these echoing stones 

Reveal. He lived his crouching life; 
Conquered wild beasts in dreadful strife; 

And left his bones. 

61 



To such a place old Time might steal, 
When the last earthly day shall close, 
And let the leaden last repose 

His eyelids seal, — 

In such a crypt his dust to lay, 

While the dread change from pole to pole 
Shall smite, and over all shall roll 

The eternal day. 

Then Darkness, by some edict fell. 
Driven from shining star and sphere, 
In these void chambers still may rear 

Her citadel; 

And Silence build her ebon throne. 

When in the vast, vague realm of air. 
Remains no dumb, dead empire where 

Her name is known. 



The Jewel 

The jewel, cradled in the rock's retreat, 
Darkly abiding, waits the destined hour. 

When in its breast the ray of noon shall beat, 
Kindling in power. 

Mark the transforming of the stubborn mold 

To something beauteous, where the light shall range, 

Ever recoiling as it doth behold 
Its own swift change ! 

The raindrop, trickling down the long crevasse. 
Glides to its heart. One day that drop will hear 

The beating of a maiden's heart, and glass 
The kindred tear. 



Nature and Man 

Spirit of earth and sky, 
Where is the buoyant rapture that I knew, 
When the mild heavens marked a kindred blue 

Set in the violet's eye? 

O Nature, once, in truth, 
I deemed I loved thy gladsome steps and face. 
Not so; I only loved in thee to trace 

The image of my youth. 

And thou didst never care 
For fretful man. He is no child of thee. 
Thou fondlest him, to spurn him from thy knee 

When days no more are fair. 

A lineage too high 
Is his, that he should come when perils loom, 
And list for comfort, in his hour of gloom, 

Thine inarticulate cry. 

64 



Yet doth the earth rejoice 
In the all-kindhng sun; the streams are free; 
The wildwood, thrilhng with the common glee, 

Wakes to the robin's voice. 

Again the snow is blown 
From out the pathways of the April wind, 
And there the first hepaticas I find, 

Happy because unknown ; 

Once more the bluebird shrills 
His mellow pipe, with its untroubled strain. 
The clear notes dropping new as April rain 

Upon the woods and hills. 

And softly overhead 
Moves the immortal spirit of the air, 
Robed in delight, without regret or care 

For all the springtimes dead. 



65 



To One Beloved by Children 

Tell me, Dear Heart, why children greet 
You always, and, with faltering feet, 
The infant hastes your face to meet. 

Or is it just as plain to you 
Why they with quiet glee pursue 
The violet's eye, the wild rose's hue? 



November Hours 

Sweet doves that wing November's air, 
And brighten all the realm of rain ; 

That circle by the window where 
One watches on her bed of pain, 

The dreary day with hope ye deck. 
Ye fetch the springtime when ye list ; 

For, as ye turn with iris neck, 
A bow is painted on the mist. 

But brighter than the plume of dove 
The airy shapes her fancies form. 

To circle in the sky above. 

And flash their beauty on the storm! 



67 



Transmutation 

If the silver of the moon, 

As it floats upon the ground, 

Were transmuted into tune. 
It, methinks, would be a sound 
Like thy voice. 

If the tremble of a rose. 

Shaken by the zephyr's wing, 

Could the door of speech unclose, 

Something 'mid its leaves would sing 
Like thy words. 



Fond Names 

The names which from my heart I bring 

In blessing thee, 
Are such as often do upspring 

In pleasantry. 

Their sparkle is the sunny mirth 

Which careless flows, — 
So like the dew, at morning's birth, 

Upon the rose. 

From deepest founts of tenderness 

They quickly rise. 
And fall as light as a caress 

On lips or eyes. 



69 



Good Morrow 

Good morrow, sweet ! The day's huge star is bom ; 

The arrows of the light are speeding free; 
They chase the darkness from the brow of mom ; 

They drive the shadows from the mom and thee. 

Ere light was, love was not, that love might be 
Companioned ever by the bright and pure. 

And, faithful to its own divinity, 

Even as the fair, unf alien beam, endure; 

That love might seek the beauty which is blent 
With virtue, and with trembling rapture trace 

The radiance in look and lineament 

Which they reflect from the eternal face. 

So, when the sunshine floods the skies afar. 

And crowns each hill, and fills each valley's bowl. 

Quickly my heart discovers its day-star. 

And, like a sunlit flower, expands my soul, — 

70 



Receiving light that is not all from thee ; 

For, with the thrilling smile, the twinkling glance, 
Is sometimes that which gleams more gloriously; 

Something divine is mixed with their romance. 

Tell me: What is the angel's gift in Heaven, 
The fire incorporate with the seraph's frame. 

If love, the holy thing to mortals given. 
Be not one ray of that undying flame? 

Oh! well I know that, in the meadows ranged 
By spirits glad, when one rich dawn shall greet, 

I shall behold thee, and, with love unchanged. 

Murmur as gayly then : " Good morrow, sweet ! " 



71 



Thy Garden 

Fain wouldst thou plant with fervent skill 
Some virtue mild, some lowly grace, 

Outside the field that owns thy will, 
Thy spirit's flowering place. 

Perchance thy neighbor's husbandry 
Spares many a weed or noxious thing; 

And where he labors languidly, 
A few faint blossoms spring. 

Yet must thou till, when daylight cheers. 
The soil within thy narrow close; 

Content if he, in after years. 
Shall ask thee for a rose. 



72 



Submission 

When surges start from out the ocean's rest, 

And shatter on the beach their foam and shine, 
Howe'er they move o'er that awakening breast, 
Some master curbs in gracefulness each crest. 
And bends their wildest sweep to beauty's line. 

Thence is the beauty of the tossing sea, 

And of the breakers in their rhythmic roll; 

It is not that the mighty wave is free, 

But that in all its motion it must be 
Under a sovereign and divine control. 

From the slight pebble which the sea's lip spurns, 

Or the frail sea-weeds, glistening as they cling. 
To the huge star, obedient as it turns. 
Where on creation's silent verge it bums, 

Lives not, nor shall, one self-concentered thing. 

" Haste ! haste ! " the stars of heaven responsive sing ; 
" Haste ! haste ! We do His will ; nor faint nor tire ; 
With pauseless flight the unfathomed concave wing, 

73 



Until the flames that ever round us spring, 
On the cold tomb of Nature shall expire." 

Submission is the hymn that smites mine ear. 

The sea voice chants it; and the stars at night. 
How loth thou art, my soul, that word to hear. 
Yet sounds no other word so loud and clear; 

None other hath been written so in light. 



74 



j 



Under the Stars 

To charm away in human souls 

The discord which their music mars, 

Perpetually the planet rolls 

In sight of the harmonious stars. 

Each moment as the shadows sweep 
Upon their round across the skies, 

Somewhere the eyes that never sleep 
Look gravely down on mortal eyes. 

Last night with wonder new I gazed 
Where famed Orion's pathway led. 

A bluish orb before him blazed; 
One followed with a luster red. 

Yonder lay Sirius' mighty span. 

Ascending the eternal steeps ; 
While, sundered far, Aldebaran 

Sank, glowing, through the ether deeps. 
75 



I heard from zenith and from pole 
The word the constellations speak, 

With which they once attuned the soul 
Of old Egyptian and of Greek; 

And thought those lights of tranquil ray, 
That ever fly nor know their quest, 

Might the tempestuous fires allay 
That rage in the impatient breast; 

And that the stars' unbounded flight 
Might give to us a mind more free ; 

For we are speeding through the night, 
And are too fain the mark to see. 



76 



Obedience 

I CALL not him a bondsman who obeys 

The will of God with gladness ; he is free, 
Because he runs the heavenly way with glee, 

Though with the vision set before his gaze 
Of perfect love, no other way may be. 

He breasts the crags of duty, for no choice 
Can be to him that loveth; and his soul 
Salutes the lightnings flashing from its goal ; 

He hears the thunders of the living Voice 
That round the mount of God forever roll. 

The winds whose strength makes glorious the heights, 
Storming the sky in their wide-winged sweep. 
Whisper to him the music that they keep. 

Sometimes he views the morning's ruddy lights 
Ere yet they rise upon a world asleep. 

Thus, dearer seems the yoke by which he bears 
Sunward and starward his familiar load; 
And, if he faints on the celestial road, 

77 



Lighter than eagles soar his heavy cares. 
Till lost in their invisible abode. 



I count not him a freeman who hath given 
His rights to rebel passion or caprice. 
He knoweth not the power he doth release, 

Nor whither by its will he shall be driven, 

And that he shall not ransom back his peace. 

Through winding ways he treads the sloping turf; 
The heaven above him ever narrower grows, 
And round his head the heavy vapors close, 

Borne from a sea that hath no sound of surf. 
Nor wind nor tide to chafe its dead repose. 

This noisome air is not the breath divine 
Which in his first enfranchisement he drew; 
Far from the joyous fever which he knew 

The dull distastes that now his heart entwine, 
And on the strugghng hght project their hue. 

Sometimes, from wood and tarn, the wandering call 
Of his lost self rings keen and piteously 
Across the silence of that pulseless sea, — 

Until the last retreating echoes fall 

From the o'erhanging chfTs immensity. 

T8 



And once at length the foul mist is dispersed, 
As o'er the waste the evening shadows draw, 
And he one brilliant star beholds with awe. 

In some vast constellation flaming first, — 
Moving obedient to eternal law. 



79 



Unforgotteo 

Thy sentries keep, when day is done, 
The single soldier, fallen prone, 

'Mid battle heaps. 
The sailor lashed upon his spar, 
Dead, underneath the evening star, 

Well guarded sleeps. 

Out of the undistinguished grave. 
Thy trumpet note will call the brave. 

Who f eU in fight ; 
And the wan sea-sands that drift 
Above the mariner will lift 

At morning light. 



80 



The Face in the Water 

I SAW my features in a brook, 

Clear-shining as the sky o'erhead. 

A sudden cloud itself betook 

Across the sun : the image fled. 

" Thus will it be when thou art dead," 

I whispered; and my spirit shook. 

The sun dispersed the gloomy cloud; 

And I beheld the image break 
Out of the waters' limpid shroud. 

" Thus it will be when thou shalt wake," 

Unto myself I softly spake ; 
And all my soul in worship bowed. 



81 



On the Shore 

Only the sea and skj; 
Only the sun and strand. 
No other scene is nigh. 
Alone with the sea am I; 
Alone on the surf-plowed sand. 

Only the sea and sky ; 

Only the sun and strand. 

One other scene is nigh: 

God, and, before mine eye, 

The universe poured from His hand. 



89 



Twin Mysteries 

The mysteries of evil and of pain, 

Within the lighted spaces hedged by sleep, 
Sometimes assail the wakeful heart and brain, — 

Then glide unanswered back into the deep. 

" Pain were not evil were it viewed aright." 
The easy sophistry contents not long; 

For soon the tempter whispers me outright, 

" Nor evil evil were thy mind more strong." 

Then doth my spirit flame in righteous mood. 

" Go, Satan ! Thy base logic is in vain. 
Ere I believe that evil is a good. 

Thou shalt persuade me that pain is not pain." 



83 



An Offering 

What shall I bring, O God, to Thee, — 

Fit for Thine altar's flame? 
My heart? But that was wrought by Thee, 
With all its strange inconstancy, 

And every fitful frame. 

What shall I bring, O God? My tears? 

Ah ! surely that were much. 
But, if they come, those grateful tears. 
From fountains clogged with dust of years, 

They flow but at Thy touch. 

What shall I bring, O God? My love? 

For that is most of all. 
But, of a truth, that sacred love 
Was sent in favor from above. 

And starts but at Thy call. 

If it were mine a gift to bring, 

Created quite by me, 
I should not dare, O God, to bring 
Unto Thine altar pure a thing 

So Httle hke to Thee. 
84 



In the Shadow of Azrael 

Dreaming, I stood with Azrael, 

The angel sad and stem. 
Two worlds met where his shadow fell. 
On one that shade lay many an ell; 

On one the sun did bum. 

Deep into the still, shadowed land 

I vainly sought to look. 
Though not a cloud its heaven spanned. 
No moon arose o'er that dim land ; 

No stars the twilight shook. 

Sometimes a fitful wind that blew 

Wafted a scent of flowers 
That in the gloomy meadows grew. 
Such fragrance out of meadows blew 

Ne'er in this world of ours. 

Across the mystical frontier, 

From where the sunlight lies. 
Pale figures passed in outline clear. 

85 



No sigh was on their lips, no tear 
Was in their solemn eyes. 

Their ceaseless foot-falls did not wake 

The atmosphere to sound. 
They turned not once their eyes, nor spake; 
Like men not sleeping or awake. 

They crossed the sunless ground. 

Upon their brows were withered leaves, 

Twisted in wreath and crown; 
And oft the mournful wind unweaves 
Some chaplet, and the dying leaves 
Are whirled in eddies down. 

In each the spirit's ray did shine 

As out of mist a star; 
And in their features' every line 
The struggling luster seemed to shine 

As something sent from far. 

In some that journeyed in the gloom 

The strange beam was so low, 
A taper glimmering in a tomb. 
And dwindling in the deadly gloom. 
Has not so faint a glow. 
86 



In other sprites the wondrous spark 

Shone sinister and foul; 
Mine eye full many a stain did mark, 
Discoloring the native spark 

Of some self-tortured soul. - 

Around the disembodied host, 
Treading its somber way, 

There flitted many a paler ghost ; 

And soon I saw a vaster host 
Within the twilight gray. 

Then Azrael, to rend the spell 
In which my soul did bide: 

" They sought in light alone to dwell. 

And beauty's solitary spell; 
So light is now denied. 

" They knew not the Eternal Truth ; 

Nor deemed they, in their scorn. 
That beauty's everlasting youth 
Springs from the bosom of the Truth, 

And light in Him is bom." 

A pulseless river glided round 
The lorn and moonless lea. 

" They strove for glory : none is found. 

Oblivion runs its changeless round," 
The angel said to me. 
87 



" For sweeter was the trumpet's blare 

Than any voice within. 
Its clamor lives in yonder glare; 
But here is neither idle blare 

Nor echo of that din." 

Beside the still and doleful stream 

Lone figures seemed to stray, 
As if to seek a vanished beam, 
That once had gilded every stream. 
And ht each common way. 

" Love is the radiance they miss," 
Once more the angel spake. 

" 'Tis contemplation's joy, the bliss 

Of meditation, which to miss 

Doth here their misery make." 

Waking, I stood with Azrael, 
The angel sad and stem. 
Two worlds met where his shadow fell. 
On this that shade lay many an ell. 
Though bright the sun did burn. 



88 



Introspection 

Somewhat of the soul is lit 

By its own abundant light; 
Somewhat doth in shadow flit, 

Far removed from usual sight. 
But sometimes a milder ray 
Than the soul's accustomed day — 
Too serene and faint to show 
Life's full ardor, passion's glow- 
When the strong beam dies away. 
Doth like timid moonlight play. 

From a realm whose mystery 
Is as that of farthest sky, — 
When the mind's familiar light 

Sinks and leaves a rosy trail. 
And upon the inner sight 

Rests a revery thin and frail, — 
Forth the substance of our dreams 
In phantasmal order teems. 

Out of silence, out of shade. 

Troops the showy cavalcade: 



Things that were and shall not be, 
Things that never were with me, 
Ever come and ever flee, 

Like the stars when night is rude, 

And light clouds awhile intrude. 

Through that dimmer atmosphere 
Lights that never do appear 
In a radiance too clear. 

Tokens of the limitless, 

Glimmer with a tenderness. 

Yet I would not always stray 

Where the moon-lamp, introspection. 
Gilds the pathway of reflection. 
And the spirit's constellations. 
Flaming in their solemn stations, 

Send from far their steadfast ray. 
In the lusty, common sunlight 
More than in the mystic moonlight 

Duty tracks her winding way ; 

Joy is there, no mate of Pleasure, 
Keeping in her heart the treasure. 

Peace, and on her lips a song ; 

Close beside her. Mirth is walking. 
And the twain with Love are talking, 

Love whose words are wise and strong. 
90 



But, when all too weary grown 

Of the spirit's glaring daylight, 
Or its frequent cloudy, gray light, 

Let me wander then alone 

In the weird light, introspection, — 

Where the lands and streams are fairy ; 
Where the elfin. Recollection, 

Builds his landscape sublunary ; 

Where the sylph, Imagination, 

And the goblin known as Fancy, 

Play fantastic necromancy. 

And with many an incantation 

Weave their witch-work bright and airy. 
In that blest supernal quiet 
Comes no vexing noise to riot ; 

Still as birds at nest-time's call 

Are the pleasant sounds that haunt me ; 
If a specter seek to daunt me, 

'Tis but shadow after all. 

Far above, the lights unchanging 
Through the eternal deep are ranging; 

And on me their strength doth fall. 



91 



Immortality 

The variant beauty of the arching dome 
And spacious floods and flower-bespangled meads 
Is flashed from that which Hes 
Beyond the skies 
And evermore recedes 
As the illumined vision tracks it home. 

Beyond the changing deep — 
The lightning-wreathed storm and seas acalm, 
Where verdant islands sleep, 
Breathing Elysian balm, 
And phosphorescent seas whose shimmerings creep 
Behind the keel that cuts their flakes of fire, 
And luminous seas that in their fastness keep 

Beauty that thrills the soul with strange desire; 
Beyond the concave blue, 
Night's cavern and retreat. 
Where in eternal tides the great stars go 

Down heights which none can view. 
And sunset's bravery most fantastical and fleet. 
And the aurora's glow, 
An Uncreated Light doth beat. 
That gleams on all below. 
92 



It is the iris of the lover's dream ; 
And gilds the fantasy 
Wherewith youth paints the morn; 
It doth adorn 

Thy heaven-soaring thought, philosophy; 

And beauteous doth the poet's fabric seem 

Even as it mingles with that clear, transcendent beam. 

Sometimes this fair material veil is shifted, 
For one rapt moment, and the sight uplifted 
Is set upon the Beauty Everlasting; 
The spirit, every weary load down casting. 
Doth briefly mix with scenes that intimate 
Her fitting habitation and estate. 

Yet with a natural sigh the soul receives. 

As fades the revelation transitory, 
The world again and its dull scenery. 

Too strange and far appears that fleeting glory ; 
Too faint a prescience leaves 
To lift the terror of mortality. 

But blessed he whose sight 
Likewise hath the Eternal Goodness hailed; 

Not in the ocean tide, 
Nor in the mellow mists by autumn trailed 
Languidly o'er the landscape, nor the flight 

Of the sure stars at night. 
But face to face in gaze beatified. 

93 



The smile of Heaven 
Is flashed across his fears ; 
Death, like a troubling vapor which is driven 

Athwart the sun at noonday, disappears ; 
And in the brightness of that wondrous Love, 

The soul doth look above 
And see her part in the eternal years. 

The heavenly desire 
Mounts by the pathway of obedience 
Above the views of sense. 

Where the stem way winds higher, 

The luring wild hangs dark and dense, 
Hiding the prospect, though the heart doth tire, 
And shutting out the far magnificence. 
But, when upon the summit of endeavor 

The soul serenely stands. 
While on the hills low hangs life's westering fire, 
The blue horizon which two worlds doth sever 

Leaps like a prisoner from his bands, 

And flows into illimitable lands 
And shining seas that roll away forever. 



94 



Wisdom and Love 

Is knowing the end of our being? 

To love is to know. 
Knowing is being and seeing; 

And loving, the height of its glow. 
Light, as it waxes and brightens. 

Bursts at last into fire: 

Sight, grown strong, lifted higher. 

Kindles quick and is love. 
And fire again lightens 

With the fervor thereof; 
And love at its height 
Is once again sight. 

The gleams that fall round us, transcendently bright, 
Brief glimpses of infinite force. 

Of the good and the one. 
Of a wisdom that broods o'er the worlds in their 
course, — 
From what star are they cast, or what sun? 
The effulgence of right? 
The white flash on the sight 
95 



Like a bolt from the cloud, 
When duty doth smite? 
The rapture the merciful feels? 
The flame in the conscience that turns 
And writhes as it bums? 
The assurance that steals 

Through the spirit in penitence bowed? 
In some moment that raises up man from the sod, 
These gleams in one splendor are mixt, and are God. 

Here knowledge begins, and it ends, 

In the vision supreme. 

No deep as profound as its beam; 
No gulf but its wisdom subtends. 

The soul, that did seem 
But a Bedouin, homeless and driven 

O'er deserts and wastes. 

Is a pilgrim that hastes 
To the house of his rest, even Heaven, — 

In a light that is more than a dream, 
For his comfort and ecstasy given. 

Shall love be outrun, 
Too feeble to soar in the blaze of that sun. 
When reason, strong eagle, forth, upward doth spring. 
With glance fixed above? 
Falters love? 
96 



Or in widening ring, 

From out his broad shadow emerging, 
Shall she rise, side by side with that conquering wing, 

To the source whence the glory is surging? 

What guides thee, strong eagle of reason, 

And thee, singing lark of love. 
That ye stray not, ye faint not, nor falter? 

Before you the Heavenly Dove, 
Whose flight not the tempest can alter. 
Nor change of the day or the season, 

Flies ever, and points you above. 
And ye mount to the Infinite Reason, 

To the Infinite Love. 



97 



The Blue Lotus 

Beside an Indian lake, the lotus waves 
Above its vague reflection dreamily, 
Above the picture, on that liquid breast, 
Of cloud and sun, of tree and hovering bird. 
Well doth the meditative Hindu soul 
Appoint the symbol of its gazing rest 
And the long dream the centuries cannot shake. 
Beneath its vision lies the Eternal Quiet, 
And, mirrored in those depths, life's shadows float. 
Mysterious flower, forever thou dost speak 
Of that sweet prince who, in the Ganges' vale. 
Did put away the monarch's robe to wear 
The mendicant's and all the gray world's sorrow, 
Preaching the life contemplative, with loss 
Of self and misery in the Infinite. 
In that deep look which grave Gautama cast 
Into the Absolute the soul appeared 
But as a wavering picture in the water. 
Quickly confused with images as vain. 
Thus, caught in such dim trance, he darkly deemed 
That so the time-rocked spirit flees away — 

98 



E'en as the lotus droops in its brief hour, 
Its image passing with the withered leaf. 
A common cure behold for grief and sin. 
The worm dies with the blossom in whose heart 
It blindly hollows its luxurious tomb. 
Too much that gaze was on the withering flower, 
The vagrant wing, the flesh corruptible. 
One look within, and he had found his God ; 
One upward glance, and Hope had stood beside him- 
Hope, eldest watcher of the morning stars. 
Ah, patient walker in the Noble Path, 
The way of righteousness, with thorns beset. 
Is not to calm Nirs^ana's drear abyss. 
But blessedness in the compassionate arms. 
" Come unto me, and I will give you rest. 
All ye that labor and are heavy laden," 
Spake One who also came to lead the soul 
From suff*ering — but not by that strange journey 
Which circles down an ever-narrowing stair 
To where the fluttering spark of mind is quenched 
In darkness on the lowliest round of fate ; 
Nor by the spiral of a thousand births. 
That mounts to light and strength and nothingness. 
" Within my Father's house are many mansions," 
He likewise said. And there, I deem, shall none, 
His feet being set inside the House of Life, 
Desert the banquet and the wine of God, 
The shining wedding garment to lay off^ — 

99 



Turn back to tread again the pilgrim road, 
And, many times the course fulfilled, throw down 
His travel-stained habiliments where sleeps 
The waveless ocean of obhvion. 
Not so the Master of the Feast ordains. 
When they who through great tribulation come. 
Behold at last through joyful tears his face. 
Life, and not death, to yearning hearts he gives. 
Life more abundantly forevermore. 



100 



Nirvana 

When good Gautama knew the end was near, 
He sought a shelter from the beams of day 
Within a grotto's shadow, where the Ganges 
Rolled downward to the sea its solemn tide. 
His followers, whom he had taught so well 
To pity none but them that love the world. 
Deemed not that loss should come to him, but grieved 
That death should hide the Master from their sight. 
So to Ananda, best beloved one. 
Lord Buddha said: " Mourn not because I go. 
All bonds which Nature weaves shall be dissolved ; 
All things into Nirvana's lap shall pour." 
The Lord of Sacrifice and Suffering 
Left this last word to Asia — weary Mother, 
Who craved some syllable of joy and hope. 
This scentless blossom, on her bosom laid. 
Hath never eased the hunger of her heart. 
As still, to some impassive idol turning. 
She searches those dead eyes for sign of love. 
Trained was Siddhartha in the art to cure 
The passion for the world, and wean away 

101 



From mad, intemperate joys; well versed to trace 

The misery lurking at the core of sin ; 

Yet Kttle taught in that elusive thing 

Called spirit, and its mystic buoyancy. 

Ah! Buddha, did thy early vanquished self 

Ne'er reappear, with rosy, smiling face, 

In the austere, sad portal of thy days. 

And ask the scepter back? Perchance in dreams. 

Under the fig-tree or a rock's cold shade. 

He stood before thee, beautiful, unchanged. 

And redolent of youth's morning. If such charm 

Our old, rejected selves possess to thwart 

Forgetfulness, shall not the better soul. 

Victorious over every lesser foe. 

All fearless challenge the proud front of Death .^^ 

'Twas thine to strip illusion from the world, 

And show the death's-head 'neath the frolic mask ; 

Not knowing that this too is but a mask. 

Whose fleshless features veil immortal life. 

Nirvana is the winter pall which cloaks 

The next good blossom time ; a light which floods 

The stars at morning, in whose blinding beam 

They quench a little while their regal ray. 

The Hindu seer, when his strong gaze is fixed 

On truth's pure substance, thought's clear, luminous 

void. 
Beholds the crystal vortex open fly. 
And Nature like a new creation rise, 

103 



As all things from Nirvana's urn are poured. 

Afloat upon the Universal Mind, 

He skirts vast isles and continents of thought, 

Hearing the surf-beat of eternal force. 

So hardy voyager, who puttest out, 

All uncommissioned, to explore that main, 

When thou art summoned to the last, long cruise, 

Shall not the ocean, that upbore thy bark. 

Still bear it, safely pillowed on the wave.? 

Nirvana is the end and the beginning. 

Man's last adventure, and, we trust, the best. 

On its gray beach begins a gentler cruise, 

I deem, than any on life's inland waters. 

And, as we touch at unfamiliar ports. 

The fellow mariners of long ago 

Will ship with us again. No pleasant mates 

Will e'er be lost upon those sunny seas. 



103 



To Memory 

Come, dewy-lidded Memory. 

For daylight doth depart; 
And I would fain commune with thee, 

Sweet sister of my heart. 

Ah, more and more thy face is dear, 
When thought is backward cast. 

As deepens on each distant year 
The purple of the past. 

Hope, with the large and wondrous eyes, 
Where'er I walked once led. 

These days she often comes with sighs, 
Or sends thee in her stead. 

I marked her steps with gladsomeness ; 

But I have lived to care 
Much for the rustle of thy dress 

Beside my evening chair. 
104 



The images that heed her wand 
Strange and elusive shine; 

But thou uncoverest with thy hand 
The pictures that are mine. 

Thy touch doth all the mists unroll 
That clog the wistful sight, 

Until the landscapes of the soul 
Gleam in their pristine light; 

But with a more entrancing sheen 
Than bathed those fields before, 

The glow of that which once hath been. 
And will be nevermore. 

Come, dewy-lidded Memory. 

For daylight doth depart ; 
And I would now commune with thee. 

Sweet sister of my heart. 



105 



In St. Agnes' Cemetery 

(By the grave of Brother Azarias.) 

Here would I sometimes stray, with reverent tread, 
Where, faint with flight, the city's murmurs cease. 
And tranquil symbols of man's hope and peace, 

Fit for sweet musing, guard each verdant bed. 

Beside one mound would linger, linger still. 
While haunting cares in meditation clear 
Dissolved like yonder clouds that disappear 

In the serene above the azure hill. 

Summer is here, and decks the earth mth bloom; 
It brims with happy song the oriole's beak. 
Even as he springs the sheltering woods to seek, 

Flashing his ruddy hues from carven tomb. 

The joyous note mars not the silence blest, 
Nor tender revery ; but seems to me 
The sudden strain of immortahty 
Which swift-winged Faith pours from her glorious 
breast. 

106 



Even so that soul its shelter and its nest 
Was wont to seek in shadow with its God, 
Where, distant from the ways by worldlings trod, 

Early it built the fabric of its rest. 

Strong spirit, on whose sight, with touch so fresh, 
The awful charm of Calvary was laid; 
Who showedst how One in perfectness arrayed 

Is imitated in the trembling flesh. 

In silence and in prayer, in pain and loss. 

Thy strength was nurtured, and thy victory earned. 

Ever the life divine; the proud world spumed; 
Ever the dragging of the weary cross. 

Perchance that labor seemeth bare and grim. 
Something that ripens in the common lot, 
Of sweetness and of bitterness, put not 

Its vari-colored fruitage forth for him; 

Yet other banquet and diviner meat 

Daily its secret cheer and solace spread — 
Renunciation, that forbidding bread. 

Whose bitter savor at the last is sweet. 

Far, far from Calvary's rock the winding road 
Where Earthly Wisdom's willful children stray. 
The babble of their voices fills the day. 

And night with murmuring sound is overflowed. 

107 



There pleasure's moon is glassed in singing seas; 

And honor's bow hangs o'er the perilous wold; 

Nor doth the traveler his hand withhold 
From any flower that lures the wandering breeze. 

Not there, O pilgrim all too quickly sped 
To thy fair City, caredst thou to roam; 
For Heavenly Wisdom whispered of thy home. 

And past Earth's short-lived blooms thy footsteps 
led;— 

Beyond the fight with Error, and the grief 

Whose shadow in these wavering skies doth lower. 
To gardens in whose happy close the flower 

Of holiness puts forth its shining leaf. 



108 



In Memory of Richard Day* 

How shines across this troubled scene 

The light of one dear Christmas time! 

The house is gay with festal green; 
Without are storm and rime; 

Festooning snow the windows folds ; 

And, by the crackling fire, I see 
A man with grave, bright face, who holds 

A child upon his knee. 

The child through changing years doth tread 
The way that then was all untrod ; 

The man hath passed unto the dead, 
With soul reclined on God. 

The old house stands in vacant gloom — 
A symbol of the things of Earth; 

The cold wind sighs in every room 
And round the cheerless hearth. 

* The author's father, born June 25, 1824, died June 11, 1901. 

109 



Yet oft I am that musing lad, 

And pray that, when life's best and worst 
For me shall end, that face will glad 

The last scene, as the first. 

Another picture crowds my view. 

I hear the hoarse, stern call, " To arms ! " 
It rings the peaceful hamlet through, 

The harvest-laden farms. 

The volunteers' white tents are set 

In the green space within the fort, 

And 'neath the ancient parapet 
Ontario's white-caps sport. 

And there are tears and sad good-byes. 
And glory's light on sword and gun, 

And high the Nation's banner flies 
In the proud autumn sun. 

Sometimes within a pillared hall, 

'Mid relics of the martial plain. 

Where many a furled memorial. 
Faded by sun and rain, 

Tom by the winds, by missiles rent, 
Tells an unwearying tale anew. 

The colors of his regiment 

With quickening pulse I view; 
110 



And once again those colors fly 

O'er winter march, in trench and swamp, 
Or catch the dying soldier's eye 

In fever-smitten camp, 

And wave above the thin blue line 

That stemmed the advance, that July mom, 
Which, under proud Disunion's sign. 

Swept to its fate forlorn. 

The wheat-field which the bullets reap, 

The railroad cut, the ridge with men 

Thick strewn, into the foreground leap ; 
Capture and prison pen. 

O darksome days of wrath and tears. 
No more your shadows I invoke ; 

The sunshine of the better years 

Rests where your thunders broke; 

Rests bright on many a soldier's mound, 
Thrown up on the ensanguined sward. 

Or gently heaped in hallowed ground 
Which peace did ever guard. 

He lived to keep the civic creed — 

When the loud war-drum ceased to roll — 
With valiant word and honest deed 

And ardor of the soul ; 
111 



Yet heedless of the world's poor wreath 

As when, a boy, fair-haired, blue-eyed, 

He stood upon his English heath. 
And watched the Bristol tide; 

An earnest man, who did rejoice 

The periled cause his own to make ; 

Not quick to hear men's flattering voice, 
But quick when Duty spake; — 

Holding the plowshare firm and true, 

Against the stubborn sward and rock. 

The rifle where the old flag flew 
In battle's foremost shock. 

He was of those who toil to build 
The hving city that shall be. 

Yet cannot know what glories gild 
Its viewless masonry; 

But shall behold each shining dome. 

And trace with joy each soaring spire. 

Within humanity's last home — 
The flower of its desire. 

For which 'mid doubt and gloom they strove, 
With weary arm and failing breath. 

And overcame by faith and love, 
Victors o'er self and death. 
119 



On the Manuscript Papers of Sir William 
Johnson 

Within these huge and dusty tomes, 
Is written more than doth engage 

The listless eye, which sometimes roams 
Along the yellow page. 

Some gain or loss in border trade, 

Some happy stroke in forest land, 

Account of money lent or paid, 
A bill, a note of hand, 

Are duly kept and handed down, 

With phrase of olden courtesy, 

'Mid weighty matters of the crown 
And of the colony. 

And, following that hurrying pen 

Through dingy scrap and faded scroll, 

I catch the tramp of armed men, 
And hear the war-drum roll. 
113 



Against the greenwood's waving mass, 
The plumes of eager warriors dance ; 

And through some gloomy vista pass 
The grenadiers of France; 

While, quicker, louder yet, I hear. 

First beating now, with sudden start, 

And thrilling all the wide frontier. 
The valiant common heart. 

Here one proud name begins to shine, 

Piercing through Braddock's black eclipse, 

A name to be men's rallying sign. 
When heard from Freedom's lips. 

Here Putnam lights the fierce foreground. 
In every peril trained that lurks 

By Horican's clear wave or round 
Ticonderoga's works. 

Upon Oswego's triple fort. 

And William Henry's bastioned walls. 
Startling the wild with strange report. 

The martial lightning falls. 

And Abercrombie's columns reel 

From Carillon's infernal chime. 
As bold Montcalm, with clutch of steel, 

Holds back the clock of time. 
114 



And, as the variant note of war 

In echoes through the Long House runs, 
I feel the discords wakened far 

In Nature's dusky sons ; 

Around the doubtful council fire. 

Rages the rude though high debate, 

When in the scales of proud empire 
Hangs poised the savage state. 

Honor to him whose wisdom charmed 

The lifted axe and brandished knife, 

And held the hovering wrath disarmed 
Through the long, dubious strife: 

The pale chief of the Iroquois, 

Well taught in all their lore and arts. 

And strong to wake to fear or joy 
Those stern barbarian hearts ; 

Yet with no weapon in his hand. 

Though long he wielded purse and sword,- 
No attribute of high command. 

As strong as his pledged word. 

Gone are the fleurs-de-lis of France; 

Gone is the banner of St. George ; 
Vanished the bloody, old romance 

From wood and stream and gorge. 
115 



The student's delving spade explores 

The relics of primeval man; 
And painfully his art restores 

The life of tribe and clan. 

And where Fort Johnson's roof-tree rose, 
Within the Mohawk's storied vale, 

Swift traffic murmurs, as it flows, 
A mild, untroubled tale. 

So, as I trace along the past 

Old lines of conflict, and behold 

The ancient barriers upcast 

To stay some power o'er bold, 

I seem as one who stands beside 

The beach-marks where in days of eld 

A sea hath rolled, and where the tide 
Alternate ebbed and swelled; 

And scarce believes what storm-notes rang, 
What billows rode in angry chase, 

And how was wrought, with shock and clang, 
The landscape's kindly face. 



116 



John Henry Newman 

From other teachers oft I turn to thee, 
O tranquil master of our highest thought, 
Whose sweet discourse is with a wisdom fraught, 

For rest and healing of humanity. 

'Tis of the soul and of its primal hurt 

Thou speakest ever; this is all thy theme; 
And for its cure thou hast no pagan dream 

Of beauty, with deceitful promise girt. 

Nor hast thou found, in Nature's sullen waste, 
Aught of her patterning but snare and lure. 
Aught, 'mid her turbulence, that stands secure, 

Whereon the fashion of her hand is placed. 

Nature, the savage, whose divinest speech 

Is caught from man ; whose highest hint is blind 
Until deciphered by a wiser mind. 

Hath in herself no word of God to teach. 

117 



Seated above the prophets who foreshow 
The kingdoms of the flesh, thou dost descry 
One kingdom hovering in the misty sky, 

And all the rest dislustered and brought low. 

Whether it come in Armageddon's wake, 
With sanguine terrors of Esdraelon, 
Or as the gradual glory of the sun 

At morning- time, it shall all kingdoms break: — 

The city of our peace, of which thou fain 
Wouldst find a type and symbol, set sublime 
Amid the mournful, shifting ways of time, 

A beacon to the wanderers of the plain. 

The spark that did above thy pathway hang. 
From out the shadows of the past appeared. 
The solemn signals which thy journey cheered. 

From out tradition's olden silence rang, — 

Guiding thee ever toward thy spirit's home, 
Even as, at nightfall, on the traveler's ear. 
The summons of a distant bell falls clear. 

With glad recurrence, as his footsteps roam. 

Thus many, following that broken ray. 

Have sought the traces of thy pilgrim feet. 
And listened for the token, far and sweet. 

That quivers on the darkness where they stray. 

118 



The soul upon some visible si^ would rest. 
What though the wisdom of an iron age, 
Too self-sufficing, count such pilgrimage 

Void as the palmer's and crusader's quest? 

Forever thou wilt be the hero saint 

Of those who battle with their gloom and doubt. 
Adventurers for truth, who dare set out 

To pierce the solitude, nor fall nor faint. 



119 



Incarnation 



This thought, once cherished by the saints, doth steal 

Across the centuries : when Christ was bom. 

The sinful flesh was freed from ancient scorn, 
Made spotless by the glory it did feel; 
Thenceforth a heavenly brightness and a seal 

Ineffable the house of man adorn ; 

And whoso hath this clay in reverence worn, 
He doth the body of the Lord reveal. 
High thought, and sweet! exalting mortal frame. 

And gladdening the heart that it doth feed; 

Of such our proud humanity hath need. 
Yet I must keep this temple, too, from shame. 

The soul can hallow it ; and bid recede 
The unclean spirits, scourged with living flame. 

II 

" O thou life of my flesh ! " so Behmen saith. 
That mystic sigh, from out the stormy years. 
Is freighted with the joy of welling tears, 
120 



Exulting in the Man of Nazareth; — 

Who breaks the bonds of wantonness and death. 
Above the soul his guarding sign uprears, 
And from the brows of men the image clears 

Of Aphrodite and of Ashtoreth. 

Such love to the Incarnate Purity 

The ascetic breathes from passionless retreat. 
Yet the resounding place where champions meet 

Hath heard as well that prayer of victory, 
When one who hath contended, yields afresh 
To armor and to arms his shrinking flesh. 



121 



The Tranquil Mind 

To things most dear — to peace and quietude — 

The world, camped round me, with its martial roar, 
Seemeth unfriendly, uttering evermore 

Its enmity against the soul's high mood. 

Some place must be unfretted by this feud, 

Safe from alarm and challenge, when they pour 
Forth from the brazen trump — some spot before 

Whose charm retire the clangors that intrude. 

Nay! nay! my soul. Not such thy peace must be; 
But such as when above the battlefield, 

Betwixt the evening's and the morning's fray. 

The stars ascend in their serenity, 

And in the Heavenly order is revealed 
The victory which doth on Earth delay. 



122 



The Unused Talent 

III fared that servant, keen in sophistries, 
Who hid from sight the talent of his Lord, 
And gave his bounty back, ignobly stored. 

Without increase from gainful usuries. 

Reft of the wealth his bold heart did despise, 
Cast from the house of labor and reward, 
He strives with darkness in a place abhorred, — 

Some gulf of lamentations and of sighs. 

Like seas that idly waste a sandy bar. 

His labors are, that fret against their bound; 
And ever, as he treads th' unresting round. 

The Heaven of Opportunity afar. 

Afar and dim, gleams over the profound. 

An inaccessible, reproachful star. 



123 



Service 

The world unto its service seeks to bind 

All goodly gifts, all fair and generous powers ; 

The courage high wherewith the good God dowers 
The sons of men ; the will, that crowns our kind ; 
Genius, that radiant angel of the mind, 

Who sows his path along the earth with flowers ; 

Beauty and youth ; and Wisdom, whose mute hours 
Are changed to gold for sordid hands to find. 
But, when the Saviour, by Gennesaret's marge, 

Wearing the wounds where late the Roman drove 
The spikes, the spear, to Peter gave such charge 

As death should be the last fulfilling of, 
Three things He asked to make that sersdce large — 

Three things were nobly pledged — and each was 
love. 



124 



Life's Unity 

Life, like a many-branched and blossomed tree, 
Lifts its perpetual burden to the throne 
Of Him who is the Infinite and One, 

And in His works Himself delights to see. 

The type which is the soul of things that be, 
Unfolds its varied pattern, zone by zone. 
With many a splendid hierarchy shown 

Against the azure of eternity. 

In Him alone such unity can rest ; 
In Him can such infinitude repose; — 

This truth the star by which we shall explore 
The force which ever through creation flows ; 

Nor thought sink down, by the obscure opprest, 
Voyaging on a sea without a shore. 



125 



The Invisible Sea 



(" The sound of the sea distinctly heard on the tops of the 
hills, which we could never hear in summer" — Dorothy Words- 
worth's Journal^ entry of Jan. 23.) 



And now the dreary earth is bare and bleak ; 

A wondrous quiet broods upon the hill; 

The voices of the tuneful days are still; 
And, inland far, the invisible waters speak. 
Too grave to drown light Summer's mirth, too weak 

To stifle Autumn's plaint, morose and shrill. 

The awful murmurs of the ocean fill 
Winter's white spaces over vale and peak. 
Note of the Everlasting, thus I hear. 

When sorrow strips the foliage from the soul, 
And all the days are silent and austere. 

Thy music break on Time's dissolving shoal. 

Then do I hear the long incoming roll 
And its outgoing, not without a fear. 



196 



Whippoorwill 

When the first star gives vision to the night, 
Thou giv'st a voice to silence, whippoorwill, 
Telling too mockingly a tale of ill. 

Poor truant Will ! He was a friendless wight, 

Who fled away at mom from scourge and slight, 
To weave strange, boyish dreams by woodland rill 
And, when the gloaming fell on dale and hill. 

Thou heardst his bitter cry, wood-haunting sprite. 

Now, where the wind raves on a rocky shore. 
The truant boy sleeps on and on, within 

A ship engulfed below an island's wall — 
Loiters in death beneath the stormy din ; 

And him disturbs the billows' play no more 
Than, far away, thy lone, persistent call. 



127 



France 

When shall the livid Furies that torment 

Thy glorious spirit be forever gone? 

And thou obey the star that beckons on 
Thy heavenly strength, in direful transports spent? 
Thou wast the light of men, and nations went 

With upraised vision when thy radiance shone; 

And none may tread thy path, which far and yon 
Pierces the shadows of the steep ascent. 
Ah! the unconquerable rage that makes 

Thy breast its home, and wields its fitful scourge 
As the grim sisters ply their whip of snakes, 

This is thy destiny, whose star doth urge, — 

A star that shall not touch the western surge 
'Till all things fail, and dawn the night o'ertakes. 



128 



Germany 

We knew thee once a shadow-loving maid, 
In Wisdom's secret haunt, content to lean 
Where gliding springs gave back thy forehead's 
sheen ; 

And on thy soul unworldly calm was laid. 

For thee the trumpet blew, the war-horse neighed; 
Death rode beside thee in the crimson scene : 
There scarce the war-seamed field again is green; 

And in thy hand glitters the unsheathed blade. 

Lives there beneath the battle's lingering scowl 
No thought of Wisdom's sweet obscurity — 

Sacred to stillness and the musing owl? 
By her clear fountains better 't were to be 
Than spy through rifted smoke winged Victory, 

Around whose head circle the vultures foul. 



129 



Italy 

" AiiAS 1 thou sleepest, drunken Italy," 

Quoth Ariosto, in heroic line, 

To the great mother, in whose veins, like wine, 
Her inspiration beat with ecstasy. 
Crowned with a rare and bright authority, 

Seeing the vision, in a light divine, 

Which Greece did see across her morning shine, 
All privilege was hers save to be free. 
She wakens now and casts away the spell ; 

No more the alien kings may do her wrong. 
But this no son with voice like his doth tell, 

Who in Ferrara poured his ample song; 
And from her gaze the vision doth retire. 
That in her soul such frenzy did inspire. 



130 



Dante 



The pagan bard who fought at Marathon, 

And showed of Pelops' house, in his stem verse, 
The monstrous doom, and Thebes' revolving curse, 

Borne and bequeathed by Laius' hapless son, 

Saw from art's blameless height each sinful one 
On whom the ire of Heaven beat ever worse. 
But thou, O Tuscan, bidden to rehearse 

The woes that in their endless circuit run. 

And the harsh toils that purge the soul from blame, 
Didst move 'mid torments, hear Francesca tell 

Of deathless passion and of deathless shame, 
And Ugolino how they hate in hell. 
From lips celestial hear thy sin as well, 

And plunge all eager in the cleansing flame. 

II 

When thou hadst learned how bitter is the bread 
The stranger gives, how steep another's stairs, 

131 



Bologna (still that tale her fame upbears) 

Would crown thy temples, yet ungarlanded. 

But thou, toward Florence, mother stem and dread. 
So oft entreated by thy sword, thy prayers. 
Still gazing with the love which ne'er despairs, 

Wouldst that no other hand should deck thy head. 

What wouldst thou with the bay, or other wreath 
Than the keen circle of thy platted thorns. 
Thou on whose brows the light of living moms 

Bides with the shadows from the gulfs of death? 
Last weakness of a soul which all else scorns 

That lies the level of its sight beneath ! 

in 

" Behold the man who once went down to hell ! " 

So did the woman of Verona speak, 

Seeing the furrowed brow and haggard cheek. 
The glance no mystery of pain could quell; 
Noting the strength which did uphold so well 

That haughty head 'mid woes not few or weak. 

Even that strength, refusing to be meek, 
Seemed of the ruined spirits that rebel. 
Too long thou tarriedst where the sun and lark 

Mount never upward to rejoice the sky; 
Too deeply on thy soul the living mark 

Was graven of relentless misery. 
As in Verona long ago, thou still 
Art he who most hath sounded human ill. 

132 



IV 



To Dante's mother, sleeping, ere his birth. 
There came (so doth Boccaccio's story run) 
A vision of the bay-tree, and her son 

Clutching the wreath desired of all the Earth. 

'Twas such a dream as oftentimes makes mirth 

Of mothers' hearts, — from their fond wishes spun ;- 
Whose blind love only sees the victory won. 

And not the scars beneath the laurel's girth. 

Mother of Dante, if thou couldst perceive 
All that the unawakened years enfold. 

The sword of prophecy thy soul would cleave. 

Like that which once on Mary's spirit fell. 
When in the temple Simeon foretold 

The coming of the day of Israel. 



Unto Ravenna, on whose generous breast. 
When he had closed the weary pilgrimage. 
He turned his vision from a troublous age 

To gaze into the city of his rest. 

Came those, before the end, who loved him best. 
Bringing such cheer as might his griefs assuage; 
And one who bore the name he did engage 

To make among the names of women blest. 

Then flashed the poet's thought across the years, 

133 



And tremblingly he saw a little maid, 

All in a goodly crimson stuff arrayed, 
And beauty such as stirred the source of tears ; 
Then viewed again the calm eternal skies, 
More glorious, lit by Beatrice's eyes. 

VI 

Where Caprione rises from the sea, 
A monastery stood, before whose gate 
The master halted once, on arch and grate 

Keeping his gaze full long and wistfully ; 

And, being asked of what his quest might be. 

He thus made answer : " Peace," — that happy state 
Which he should hardly win, nor win till late. 

On fields where camped the exultant enemy. 

So to the cloister of his song I come. 

Where the loud world's pursuing echoes fail; 

And, if the hearts which make this house their home. 
Ask what I seek within its quiet pale. 

My answer is none other than he gave 

At Caprione, by blue Spezzia's wave. 

VII 

We know the sources whence thy spirit drew. 

Angel and Seraph of the Schools, they brought 
To thee the shining substance of their thought. 

Hellas and Rome poured out their souls anew. 

Thy mystic alchemy did all pursue 

134 



That might by still or crucible be caught; 

And systems of gray Eld, thy patience wrought 
Into a wisdom more divinely true. 
But lo ! a higher hath thee in his debt — 

Than sage or singer lends a greater part. 
In Florence's street a beauteous figure stands, 
Greeting upon her lips, her eyes, her hands. 
All blessedness in her sweet speech is met; 

Then Love, the tyrannous, cries : " Behold thy 
heart ! " 

VIII 

If death had never reaped thy heart's young flower. 
Nor the stem angel of thy fortune sent 
Thee forth most desolate, how hadst thou spent 

The ardor of thy spirit and its power? 

Perhaps thy late enamored lute in bower 
Of troubadour a rarer note had lent. 
And in some Court of Love thy argument 

Worn the Proven9al rose a little hour. 

But not in languorous strife of troubadour 

Thou wast to learn how love should honored be ; 

The song that makes his ecstasy seem poor 
Was nurtured in no school of gallantry. 

'Mid combats grim as death thy spirit wove 

Such thoughts as angels breathe in praising love. 



135 



Don Quixote 

Not many heroes do I hold, rare knight, 

Dearer than thee. Not one on loftier quest 
Has bared his pure escutcheon to the light; 

And never shame defiles thy roving crest. 
Mirth, victor o'er thine onset, comes with tears 

Back from the tilt, regretful that his lance 
Devotes so brave a heart to cruel jeers, 

And half he quails at thy unhumbled glance. 
Thou art of that immortal company 

Who challenge wrong in Folly's ample lists. 
And Charlemagne's and Arthur's chivalry 

Fade on our vision in the far-ofF mists ; 
But thou on Rozinante forth dost fare. 
Seeking the foe who foils thy spear in air. 



136 



Sea-Wine 

The wind that blows from the main 
Is a strong wine for the brain, 
And the surges dashed with rain, 
Or touched by the sunbeam's feet, 
Are a wine for the heart full sweet. 

This liquor the sea-gods quaff. 
Laying by the three-pronged staff, 
While the vintage as they laugh. 
Into bubbles and white foam shakes, 
And over the huge brim breaks. 

Oh ! it kindles a daring mood. 

When mixed with a brave man's blood. 

And stout as the lion's brood 

Are the hearts that upward leap 

When they drink of that bowl full deep. 



137 



The Sea-Bird 

The wind rests on the sea; 
But rests not, stays not, he; 
And his liberty must be 
Ever and ever to haste 
Over the muttering^ waste. 

In the sea's trough rest the ships ; 
But the wing which the sea-bird dips, 
This wing whence the salt spray drips. 
In the furrow of death must fail 
Or instant the storm-heights scale. 

Sprite of the stormy air. 
All free things onward fare. 
Nor the wing that's freest dare. 
For a stolen moment blest, 
Fold over the panting breast. 



138 



The Petrel 

The petrel's wing, though frail, 
Is set against the gale . 
Which rends the mariner's sail ; 
And his joy it is to fly 
In the vortex of the sky. 

Up ! little bird, and sweep 
With the spray across the deep, 
While playmate billows leap; 
The storm's breath and its strife 
Are thy heart's breath and its life. 

Blithe seafarer! thy home 
Under the limitless dome, 
Over the measureless foam. 
Storms are as down to thy breast ; 
Betwixt wing-beats is thy rest. 



139 



Two Castaways 

There are two islands bare 

Under the torrid air, 

In ocean's desolate glare; 

On each a sun-browned face 

Turns from the sea-birds' chase,- 

Turns to the rim of sky 
Where the unseen ships go by, 
And not a ship doth lie 
In the level offing near. 
While lusty sailors cheer. 

One castaway shall mark 
At last a rescuing bark 
Heeding his signal spark; 
But one shall live and die 
Alone with sea and sky. 



140 



The Quest 

The isle which the mariner finds, 
Sphered by the waves and winds, 
The beach which his surf boat grinds, 
Long in his heart hath lain, 
Long in the sleepless brain. 

Forever we seek the known, 
Out of whose perilous zone 
Light on the soul hath shone. 
Who for the unknown cares. 
Struggles and prays and dares? 

Pierces the waste which lies 
Round the islands of surprise? 
Only a change of skies. 
And out of the mist, behold ! 
The vision dear and old. 



141 



The Portuguese Men-of-War 

Sometimes, when the course is dim, 
Where the barks of the merchants swim, 
Soft lights fill the sea-trough's brim, 
And luminous squadrons wheel 
Around the mariner's keel. 

Wee craft are they, and frail. 
If the storm-wind's whistling flail 
Shall strike on the scarlet sail. 
And the wave with a quicker shock 
On the purple hull shall knock. 

Never will navies reel 

Back from their broadside's peal, 

Nor cities their lightnings feel. 

Calm, 'neath their effulgence unfurled, 

Rests the wide watery world. 



142 



The Empty Nest 

Deep in the cliff's ragged breast, 
Which welter and spray invest, 
Lonely, deserted, a nest! 
The wings that once roofed it are fled; 
The notes that once cheered it are sped. 

Oh! the gray, beaten rock, austere 
As its ages piled year on year. 
Sees life as a brief dream here. 
The bird and nest in the rift 
Are dust which the wind doth lift. 

Yet the days when a glory shone 
From the vast of the gray, old stone. 
From the timeless, trackless unknown. 
Are the days when its calm was stirred 
By the wing and note of a bird. 



143 



Fire of Drift- Wood 

Crackle and sparkle and shine, 
Drift of the ship-heaving brine! 
From these red embers of thine, 
Flits through my heart and my brain 
All the romance of the main. 

Hissing and murmur and roar! 
On is the tempest once more. 
Lo ! now a wave-plowing prore ; 
Now a wave- weltering deck; 
Now but a mast-traihng wreck. 

On that wreck sea-nymphs have danced. 
When the night to its noon advanced, 
And the hull 'neath the moon lay tranced. 
Now in thy embers they reel. 
Mingle and sever and wheel. 



144 



The Cruise of Mars 

In the blue ether far, 
Signahng mortals with its evening glow, 
Hangs the red star. 

In the years long ago, 
Like a strong ship, it caught the viewless gales 
That always blow. 

Vain is the voice that hails 
The ruddy voyager, and would inquire 
Whither it sails. 

Vast is that sea and dire; 
But safe it rides, convoyed by the great sun 
With sails of fire. 

Since the brave cruise begun, 
What souls have voyaged in that ancient bark. 
Whose hour is run? 

145 



Did they the haven mark? 
Mark where in distant seas the harbor lies, 
Lit by some spark? 

Knows one the ship's emprise? 
Or do the mariners with orders sealed 
Sail the bright skies? 

If Sin her scepter wield 
O'er them I know not ; nor if War there lift 
His sanguine shield. 

Nor if the drowsy gift 
Loathly they take, when round them solemnly 
Death's visions drift. 

As thou, weird bark, so we 
Journey across the tideless, voiceless waste, 
Nor whither see. 

Our ship, too grand for haste. 
Plows the serene, and bears a watchful crew, 
Sad-eyed, stem-faced. 

Here Sorrow doth pursue 
Her round, and Misery fold her bloodless brood 
'Neath the night dew. 
146 



With faith and hardihood, 
We go in quest of what no soul of man 
Hath understood; 

Hoping that One doth scan 
The fleets celestial, and with strength unworn 
Their courses plan. 

Thus on some sliining mom 
The worlds may draw together, where the tide 
Flows round their bourn; 

And Earth, red Mars, may ride 
Through the charmed ether, and, her voyage o'er, 
Moor by thy side. 



147 



&£.>*i -»-'• =^ iis''<^^ 



One copy del. to Oat. Div. 



JAN 3 1910 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 

015 988 619 



